Revolutionary Applications when Mobile Broadband meets RFID

In June 2009, Ericsson’s VP of Systems Architecture, Håkan Djuphammar, proclaimed that all new mobile phones will be equipped with RFID by summer 2010. As of today, NCFWorld reports active RFID tag pilots at municipalities in France, Telefonica, Garanti Bank in Turkey, and others. My bet is that Håkan will not achieve his timeline, but that ultimately his vision for widespread use of phones for authentication, access, and payment will be realized.

Even if it is a delay relative to Håkan’s ambitions, RFID read and transmit will become a common feature of phones at about the same time 4G broadband capabilities become frequent part of phone-network packages. In technical terms, this will allow streaming of rich content in response to EPC Application Level Events (ALEs). Here are some future real life examples:

• An in-store shopper touches her phone to a garment and receives video of celebrities modeling similar fashions, with accessories
• A coffee drinker pays for a cup of coffee made with beans from his favorite region of Columbia and receives an infomercial on neighboring coffee producing regions.
• A patient uses a phone to make a co-payment for medical services and can immediately use the phone to view explanation of benefits from the payer

A lot of moving parts need to come together to make these solutions and other solutions real. In addition to availability of devices from the likes of Sony Ericsson, point of sale/service experiences need to be designed and deployed, networks need to be constructed, and back-end systems need to be developed. That’s a lot of coordinated investment but Sony Ericsson and the 4G network providers are leading the charge with big investments. Now businesses can make their application investments and know they are not alone. The time is right for businesses to make this three-way partnership. These applications are too exciting and valuable to pass up.