Three months ago AT&T announced it would be launching trials of a hosted RFID infrastructure for an "open," standardized RFID system.

An article in eCommerce Times gives a glimpse into AT&T's plan, showing that what is going on here is a much broader initative than your typical announcement of some new RFID-related product. AT&T is on a quest to bring standardization to the RFID industry, as are some other players, including IBM. The article notes:

"Wal-Mart and Target aren't just pushing RFID into the mainstream -- they're demanding standardization across their supply chains. In October, both of those companies said they would share product code data between them, meaning that manufacturers supplying both Target and Wal-Mart don't have to create separate RFID systems for their two biggest clients. A box of shampoo is tagged as a box of shampoo, regardless of which chain store sells it.

Of course, this kind of transparency creates problems of its own, the biggest one being security. The beauty of a closed-loop system is its opacity. Data remains internal, and even if a competitor could access those tags, there's no way it could read the proprietary information stored within.

With standard protocols, however, everyone with an RFID reader has the ability to access your supply-chain information. Security has to be established as a mechanism on the network. That's where AT&T feels it has its edge -- in the management of data across the network -- but AT&T isn't the only company out there entertaining the role of data integrator.

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RFID is a highly fragmented industry right now with a long list of disparate technology and middleware vendors, and complexities that no single integration company can claim to grasp, Liard said.

However, consolidation is occurring as vendors swallow each other up. The retailers are selecting their preferred vendors, further narrowing the list. And the IBMs, Accentures and AT&Ts are forming partnerships and building their ecosystems at a rapid clip, Liard said. If IBM has one advantage over AT&T now, Liard said, it has been its visibility in the market -- something AT&T could change if it attacks the market with gusto."

Read the whole article at eCommerce Times if you want to see where the industry may be headed.

If similar initatives in other industries are any gauge, this is the start of a very long term kind of movement. Moving from a fragmented industry to one which is based on common standards does not happen overnight.

Hat tip to Vangorilla at the Pondering Primate for pointing out the significance of AT&T's plan and this article.