NFC in mobile phones - time to shift paradigms
Posted by Patrick Sweeney on Sat, Nov 20, 2010
The technology community has been the most fervent adopters of the "paradigm shift" mentality. The definition was made famous by Thomas Kuhn in his seminal book The Structure of Scientific Revolution.
According to Kuhn an original paradigm must change when practitioners recognize an "acute problem" with the existing theory and practice.
Google's CEO Eric Schmidt stated the acute problem with the current NFC on mobile phones paradigm last week at Web 2.0. He gushed an exciting future vision of "never taking the phone from your pocket" while it gathers data and checks you in to places or reads other phones.
Schmidt described an entirely new paradigm that NFC cannot deliver.
The idea of using NFC in phones because other countries have done it, because technology is availble, because there are dedicated journals and groups, etc. are classic signs - according to Kuhn - leading to a required paradigm shift to breakthrough to the next level of performance.The shift has to be to UHF RFID on mobile phones.
The first acute problem with NFC is read distance. To have high utility we need 1-2 meters. NFC offers 1-2 centimeters.
The second acute problem, that has not emerged so obviously, is interoperability. If mobile phones are to be used widely with RFID i.e. reading patient wristbands by doctors, comparing prices on designer jeans, topping off ski passes - all will require UHF ISO 18000-6c read capability because that is where the markets have migrated.
The last acute problem with NFC (and I am not suggesting my list is comprehensive) is cost. NFC is based on ISO 1443 at high frequency and tag costs are almost double UHF and htere are a lot more metals used in a tag sometimes 300% more!
Time for mobile phone manufacturers to shift paradigms.
The first mobile phone manufacturer with a UHF phone and easily accessible software development platform will ahve a hit bigger than the iPhone - I guarantee it!