Where is NFC headed for?

Filed in archive Near Field Communication on March 6, 2007

A number of sectors are conducting NFC trials and many of them are being held in Asia, Europe and North America in order to test the potential of this technology. Despite a number of trials being conducted there has not been any major rollouts of NFC up till now and any chances of something like this happening this year looks bleak. The various trials being conducted has reaffirmed the faith of the industry in this technology but a number of people are wondering as to why so much of time is being taken in implementing it whole heartedly.

To some it seems to be a worrisome situation despite claims by various companies that they would be launching NFC phones. Some are not sure whether mobile network operators are convinced regarding the commercial viability of this technology.

Jonathan Collins, senior analyst, ABI Research stated:

The mobile operators are the customers, really. If the equipment and specifications aren't to their liking, they're not going to be ordering phones with NFC, and that's where we've been for the last couple of years.

It is being said that the future of this technology depends upon mobile network operators and if they feel that this technology is not worth it then it would never see the light of the day. The operators want certain conditions to be fulfilled in order to ensure that they adopt NFC and one of the things they are asking for is to have a standardized connection of NFC chip to the SIM card so that they also get a share in the revenue of NFC and don't lose out on their customer base. There seems to be an air of confusion regarding how this technology could turn out to be economically viable and until and unless this issue is not solved it would really become difficult for this technology to shine out.