Near Field Communication

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that offers simple, intuitive, and safe communication between electronic devices. Nokia is active in the area of NFC, and the company launched the world’s first fully integrated NFC phone, the Nokia 6131 HFC phone, in January 2007. With Nokia's NFC enabled devices, users can make contactless payments and access mobile services with ease, leave their travel and loyalty cards at home, and much more. Together, NFC and Nokia offer exciting opportunities across an ever-widening spectrum of market sectors.

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Introduction to NFC

NFC is one of the latest wireless communication technologies. As a short-range wireless connectivity technology, NFC offers safe — yet simple and intuitive — communication between electronic devices. Users of NFC-enabled devices can simply point or touch their devices to other NFC-enabled elements in the environment to communicate with them, making application and data usage easy and convenient.

The big advantage of the short transmission range is that it inhibits eavesdropping on NFC-enabled transactions.

NFC technology opens up exciting new usage scenarios for mobile devices.

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From old benefits to new

One of the main goals of NFC technology is to make the benefits of short-range contactless communications available to consumers globally. The existing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology base has so far been driven by various business needs, such as logistics and item tracking. While the technology behind NFC is found in existing applications, there has been a shift in focus — most notably, in how the technology is used and what it offers to consumers.

With just a point or a touch, NFC enables effortless use of the devices and gadgets we use daily. Here are some examples of what a user can do with an NFC mobile phone in an NFC-enabled environment:

• Download music or video from a smart poster.
• Exchange business cards with another phone.
• Pay bus or train fare.
• Print an image on a printer.
• Use a point-of-sale terminal to pay for a purchase, the same way as with a standard contactless credit card.
• Pair two Bluetooth devices.

So far, the three key facets and use cases of NFC have been payment and ticketing, service initiation with reader/writer functionality, and sharing (peer-to-peer [P2P]). NFC supports payment and ticketing services by enabling the use of contactless tickets and cards that are stored in mobile devices. Rather than having to carry transit tickets, loyalty cards, and credit cards in their wallets, consumers can now store several cards in their NFC-enabled phones. For additional convenience, transaction histories can be made easily available.

An NFC-enabled phone functions much like standard contactless smart cards that are used worldwide in credit cards and in tickets for public transit systems. Once an application, such as a credit card application, has been securely provisioned to the NFC-enabled phone, the customer can pay by simply waving the phone at a point-of-sale reader. The NFC phone also offers enhanced security, enabling the user to protect the secure applications through the phone's user interface features.

Into the future

In the future, users will be able to pick up information from our environment using NFC technology. NFC allows mobile devices to read information stored in NFC tags on everyday objects, such as posters, bus stop signs, street signs, medicines, certificates, and food packaging. For instance, with NFC tags in posters and advertisements, consumers can use their NFC-enabled phones to tap into service initiation — accessing existing mobile services, such as hotlines, short message service (SMS) applications, and network- or Internet-based content and services.

Of the three main NFC use cases, two already are integrated into existing technologies and infrastructures. First, contactless-payment and contactless-ticketing infrastructures continue to be widely deployed. As for service initiation, it is based on selected, existing tag and card technologies. These two cases provide an established starting point for NFC technology adoption, thus minimizing start-up costs.

The third use case, sharing (P2P), is still to come. It is envisioned that P2P combined with tag technologies selected by the Near Field Communication Forum (NFC Forum) will shape the market toward more-uniform and open technologies.

The NFC Forum was formed to advance NFC technology usage. On its agenda is development of specifications, ensuring interoperability among NFC devices and services, and educating the market about NFC technology. The Forum, formed in 2004, now has more than 120 members. Manufacturers, application developers, financial service institutions, and others have been cooperating to promote the use of NFC technology in consumer electronics, mobile devices, and PCs.

NFC and Nokia

Nokia is active in the area of NFC. The company has been implementing the technology since 2004 and, together with Philips and Sony, founded the NFC Forum. By May 2007, global membership in the NFC Forum had exceeded 120 organizations. The membership represents all major industries and includes semiconductor, mobile device, operator, financial, IT, and services companies.

In January 2007, Nokia launched the world’s first fully integrated NFC phone, the Nokia 6131 NFC phone. This was followed by the Nokia 6212 classic in April 2008 as part of an expanding range of NFC enabled devices.

Applications in the secure element can be managed securely over the air (OTA). In 2006, Nokia and Giesecke & Devrient formed a joint venture called Venyon to provide services to the NFC ecosystem to manage OTA the consumer applications in NFC devices. Venyon is an open, independent service company that offers its services to all stakeholders in the NFC ecosystem, including mobile device vendors.

Developing for NFC with the Contactless Communications API (JSR-257)

The Contactless Communication API (JSR-257) enables third-party Java applications to access the features of a NFC enabled Nokia device. The API functionalities are divided into five packages:

• javax.microedition.contactless, which provides common functionality to all contactless targets.
• javax.microedition.contactless.ndef, which provides functionality to exchange NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) data with other contactless targets.
• javax.microedition.contactless.rf, which provides interfaces for physical RF targets.
• javax.microedition.contactless.sc, which provides interfaces for communication with external smart cards.
• javax.microedition.contactless.visual, which provides a means to read information stored on visual tags (bar codes) and to generate visual-tag images.

JSR-257 contains both mandatory and optional packages. Some optional packages, such as support for visual tags, have not been implemented in the SDK. At the same time, the Nokia 6131 NFC SDK provides several extensions to the standard JSR-257. These extensions allow implementation of P2P communications between two NFC Interface and Protocol (NFCIP-1) devices and offer access to Jewel and Topaz tags, to DESFire, to Mifare and Mifare Ultralight, and to Sony's FeliCa.

In addition to JSR-257, the Nokia 6131 NFC SDK offers a full-blown development environment with NFC-tag and NFC-smart-card simulation, as well as communication to external card readers and devices supporting JSR-257. The SDK also contains a Nokia 6131 NFC phone emulator, Java APIs for application development for the Nokia 6131 NFC phone, and example MIDlets.

New business opportunities

With the limitless possibilities offered by NFC enabled applications, it is no wonder developers are already creating innovative applications. Here are some examples of the possibilities:

Urban life:

• Smart posters, which give users up-to-date, incremental content when touched.
• Replacement of contactless credit cards with mobile phones.
• Parking-facility management and parking-fee payment.
• Aid for the visually impaired (for example, through voice clips).

Personal wellness and health care:

• Personal training (for example, a mobile phone application that can collect information on the consumer's training and that can modify and even create training programs).
• Medication reminders.
• Identification of medication and blood samples.
• Health monitoring.

Enterprise:

• Time and attendance applications for field employees.
• Electronic product codes on NFC tags for retail.
• Workflow management and reporting for home health-care workers.
• Access control.
• Guiding of consumers in retail.

With NFC's integration into existing technologies and infrastructures, the technology and Nokia together offer exciting opportunities across an ever-widening spectrum of sectors, from consumer services such as payment and ticketing to retail, security, and health care.

NFC technology	Nokia 6131 NFC phone, with integrated NFC
Optimized for proximity transactions as well as handovers to other bearers. Standardized in ISO 18092. Works in the globally available 13.56-MHz range, with a data exchange rate between 106 kbps and 424 kbps. Compatible with the existing and to-be-built contactless payment and ticketing card infrastructure based on the ISO 14443 standard.	Supports JSR-257 for accessing NFC features from third-party applications. Supports most popular tag formats for read and write: Mifare 1K, 4K, and Ultralight; Topaz; Jewel (read-only); and FeliCa (non-secure). Contains secure element: Global Platform 2.1.1-compliant Java smart card, supporting card emulation for ISO 14443 Type A and Mifare 4K cards.

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