Gerald Madlmayr's Blog

After being two years among the Nokia Champions, attending several Events as well as receiving lots of support (and mobile phones) by Nokia, my membership will end today. I'd like to thank the whole Nokia Team (Nina, Anne, Janaina, Jure, Andreas, Gerhard, Peter, Philip etc. ....) for the great time we had as well as the possibility to learn a lot about mobile technology.  I have enjoyed my membership and that I was able to use all the benefits entitled to me as a Forum Nokia Champion.

Thank you!

Today atthe ICT2010 in Brussels I came across a very nice NFC gadget: Getyoo’s Clickey.A Clickey is a fully featured NFC device supporting reader-writer mode as well as P2P Mode. It is based on a standard NXP PN512 platform plus an additional STM32F. I was not able to find a smartcard chip on the PCB for Card emulation. The PCB saids "NFC by RFIDea" - STM NFC v 3.1.1.

In order to activate the reader/writer or P2P mode the device has a button to conserve the power of the battery as long as possible. The battery itself is not yet recharge-able – this will be fixed in the next version of the hardware. (Chargethru USB). Also DESFire support will be added in the next version.

The USB-Connection actually is the link to the outside world. All the informationat is collected througth the R/W and P2P Mode is stored on the memory stick. For reading the data on the USB Stick, a link to Getyoo’s Webportal is required, where the user has to sign up.

Getyoo’s Clickey currently is fully id-based and does not use the NFC Forum NDEF Format.The Clickey reads only the Ids of the tags or information of other Clickeys (in P2P-Mode). The Clickey then creates/updates an HTML File on the USB-Stick functionally. By opening the HTML Page on the USB Stick, the Ids of the Tags and Clickeys read so far are transferred to the Getyoo Server. (passed over asa simple form-parameter). The USB Stick acutally has capacity of 6 KB and thus should provide sufficient memory for some of the 4-Byte-IDs.

Getyoo is also working together with ping-ping a payment provider based inBelgium for payment. The basic idea is, to use the mobile NFC token for identification and do the authorization of the payment (if necessary, which means > 10 EUR) through the mobile phone. Payment at automated vendingmachines can be mobilized that way. They also have been talking to Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook for a cooperation to allow a physical interaction between facebook members.

I actuallyreally like the idea and think this is one possibility to bridge the gap, as long as no NFC enabled phones are available. Form a business perspective, this approach breaks out of the currently models for NFC cases – but itis definitely worth a thought, allthough without a card emulation functionally it is missing a lot of potential. 

The projectis funded by the European Union. A Clickey costs about 15 EUR.

Nokia this week announced three Symbian^3 that all come with the JSR-177 (E7-00, C7-00, C6-01).

Now, this is something nothing that will change the world (as the devices do not yet feature NFC) -- BUT: the JSR177 is required for the OTA Management of Applications on the UICC through a proxy application on the phone as well as the communication of Secure-Element based Clients (eg. VISA and MasterCard UIs for their Apps) with the Java-Card Applets. After the not released 6216, these are the first Nokia Phones with the new API. Accessing the secure element requires the application to be sigend in order to access the secure memory of the SIM.(see details on the security domain concept)

Additionally I found the following news: Possible Nokia Smartphone With RFID Hits FCC.

When I count these two pieces of information together, I expect to see a new Symbian^3 based devices with NFC coming soon. Cross your fingers.

Right after the holiday seasons, the number of press releases about mobile payment and related stuff is increasing. Looks like, we had a hot August ;-) Although, from my point of view, mobile payment/banking is one of the most (over-) hyped topics in the telco industry, where as classic payment plattforms like PayPal work quite well. But anyway, let’s see what’s going on:

The biggest news this summer came from Apple, who hired Benjamin Vigier as a product Manager for contactless technology. It didn’t take long, till you could read about new iPhone 5 (!) with contactless hardware – maybe in 2013 ;-). Benjamin Vigier was previously working for m-Foundery that has a respectable track record in the field of mobile payment/banking apps. Probably their most popular App is the Starbuck-Card (which can be used for payment), which really is a quite useful and usable app.

In the Press

Benjamin's Linked in Profile 

Paypal launched its Apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. All three apps come with the whole functionality already known form the web-portal. A first try shows, that the usability is really good. A nice feature of the Apps is the very intuitive “Bump” feature. Using this extension, which actually was developed by “Bump Technologys”, allows two persons to exchange money simply by bumping their phones. So far there are no J2ME apps by PayPal, which would run on the major amount of devices already in the market. But as the API is open to public, it should be feasible to implement such a system.

PayPal Mobile App

Earlier that summer also Mastercard launched a mobile service called “MoneySend” allowing MasterCard Customer to send money using the Mobile phone. Since June there is also an according App available for Apples mobile Product portfolio as well as Blackberry. Visa’s Android pendant is still not available to public in Android’s Market but only to selected customers. (Launched December 2008). Mastercard's Moneysend is actually powered by Obopay.

MoneySend on AppStore

Visa Mobile

Watch with PayPass

Currently there no new news from Nokia’s joined venture with Obopay. Gerhard Romen, VP for mobile Financial Services, announced this strategic partnership at the MWC 2010 in Barcelona as well as the YES-Bank Trial in India. But currently there is no new news from this initiative. There is actually an Obopay App for Blackberry as well as for iPhone. There are as well channels like SMS, IVR, STK and J2ME that allow the use of Obopay's IT Bankend. Uses the banking backend of "YES BANK". 

Nokia and Obopay in India

OboPay on Blackberry

There is also a promising new start-up dealing with mobile payment founded by Daniel Mattes. Jumio.com setup in Linz (upper Austria) was recently founded by the co-founder of Jajah, a popular VOIP service, this is now owned by Telefonica. Mattes plans to open his platform on November 13^th, this year. So far he gave neither details on the service nor the functionality. Personally I doubt that it will be a full feature payment platform, as he then would have to deal with the acquirement of the merchants. But let’s see.

www.jumio.com

Aaron Greenspan, Co-Founder of Facebook, also considers mobile payment as an interesting field. Therefore he launched a service called FaceCash. There are already apps available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry and there are already some twenty merchants around Stanford University accepting this means of payment. The system works similar to m-Founderys Starbucks card. You have a barcode on your phone for identification and in the backend system there is the money stored. What I like about the system, that you can use FaceCash even without a phone:  Just print out the payment card that appears when you sign up, cut it out, and put it in your wallet. It works just like a phone, but you don't need a battery or a service plan!

www.facecash.com

In Case I missed some of the important news, just post your comment below.

Samsung launched its 4th NFC enabled Phone) this spring, the Samsung s5230n (aka Tocco Lite/Star/Player One/Avila). The device is one of the most sold devices and very popular among users. The phone actually is also used in the large scale trial in Nice (France).

Samsung S5230n

After Nokia cancelled the 6216, the s5230n, this is the first “commercial” SWP Phone available. In order to use the SIM-card for the popular Card Emulation (CE) Mode, a SWP-SIM Card is required. In France SIM from Oberthur are in use, where as other manufactures like Gemalto or G&D also have similar products in their portfolio.

The NFC Chip to use for the SWP/NFC Phones today is either NXP’s PN544, Inside’s MicroRead or ST Microelectronics’ NFC SWP Chip. Nokia greatly benefits from the design approach of using the daughterboard holding all the NFC functionality. Even the NON NFC  621x phones do have the connectors for a daughterboard as well as the connector to the SIM for the SWP usage.

Nokia 621x phone with daughter board containing NFC Unit

Sagem my700X with NFC Chip

From a developer’s point of view, those phones come with the JSR177 for the communication with the SIM Card. Therefore operator or manufacturer certificates are required in order to sign the MIDlets and access the data in the UICC. For ordinary developers, such a certificate is hard to get. This limits the implementation of these services to companies closely cooperating with the MNOs or phone issuers.

Having a closer look at the Samsung, shows, that running Midlets on this device requires developers to adapt the apps especially to GUI/Touch-Screen Input in order to make full use of the device features. From my point of view, the contactless functionality itself is implemented a little bit clumsy. It is not quite clear, where the user has to touch and after a reading  and it requires to user to take several steps to take an action (no touch and go).

Although NFC is now available and under standardization for more than 8 years, we don’t have devices yet in the market and it seam still hard for the hand set manufacturers to implement it in a suitable way. This is either due to technical limitation/compatibility issues and a mass of stake-holders in the market. This is now where Apple pops in. I’m expecting them to come up with a bunch of services as well as a super-usable integration of NFC in upcoming devices. Indicators for that are that Benjamin Vigier became product manager for NFC at Apple. Secondly, Apple is closely working with Samsung – they have already a very sound know-how in how to implement NFC on the baseband side. So I’m definitely looking forward, what is coming next from them.

 It is quite quiet in the NFC industry at the moment. Although there are lots of press releases about trials and new joint ventures, but what I’m missing at the moment is the big step ahead. One might say, the new Samsung is a big step. That’s right, as it is the first phone making use of the SWP and the appropriate UICCs. But isn’t this another trial? The services are only available in Nice and the apps are pre-installed on the UICC (so no OTA Management at the moment). Secondly, when looking closer at the device, it is a nice phone with contactless features – but not more. Smartposter use cases don’t work intuitive and the phone itself is again more than 12 month old and with its resistive display not state of the art. Don’t forget, competition is hard in the Smartphone market these days. Also the announcement of Nokia, to chancel the 6216 was a good decision, as the platform itself was more than 3 years old and therefore would not be able to compete with today’s smartphones and thus would only be again “a trial phone”.

SWP & NFC UICCs

Currently I think at the implementation and the design of the SWP is quite complicated and therefore causes problems with interoperability between phones and UICCs. In the meantime I question the decision to head for the UICCs as the secure element, as with SIM space rental alone might be the big money. Solutions (and phones) with embedded secure element might be less complicated and feasible as well (as Nokia already proofed with their devices 3220, 6131 and 6212).

Apple & NFC

I think Apple knows that and that’s why the iPhone – if NFC enabled – will only support such a secure element. The OTA Management will available through the App-Store, as the device is already fully management by Apples backend system. The customer in the end will not know, if an app has some code in the secure element or not – from a user’s perspective this doesn’t matter. It simply has to work (and that is what apple is good at). In combination with the amount of NFC patents (payment, ticketing, etc.) filed by Apple at the moment, there is a good chance that we see NFC in upcoming Apple-Devices, not only the iPhone but also Mac-Books and iMacs. I’m looking forward to see these, cause again, these will put the market upside down.

KISS – Keep it simple stupied

Simplicity is the key to success. Not only from a customer’s point of view, but also form an implementer’s/integrator’s one. The case where the UICC and the NFC phone need to interact in a smooth way is more complicated that the case with the embedded secure element. GP now even comes up with a proposal for multiple secure elements – from my experience this is just an academic view and is not feasible as long as we are not able to deal with a single secure element in a device – so let’s be realistic.

What’s coming?

This year I expect the first Android phones to come with NFC technology, but only supporting reader/writer mode and peer-to-peer (using the OpenNFC Stack). I also consider Nokia to release a new phone with NFC – but again only support basic contactless features without/limited card emulation. This might be a good idea to get customers to get used to contactless technology. Lots of countries (such as Austria, Germany) don’t have a contactless reader infrastructure and thus such devices don’t need a card emulation feature.

I think NFC will not be available in a two digit percentage of devices in western markets before 2012. Even if the iPhone would support NFC, the market share is far too small in order to make real money out of it (but not for Apple).

No kidding ;-) I'm nominated for my first "Academy Award" in the Category "Near Field Communication".

The Award is "Assigned to outstanding members of the NFC Community who have distinguished themselves in 2009 for their commitment, leadership, creativity and innovation." I'm actually on the short List and really would apprechiate your vote (for me ;-). Thank you:

http://www.idworldonline.com/index.php?id=idpa09

Just a quick note: Nokia today announce the new champions for 2010. Guess what -- I've been re-elected *happy* THANK YOU NOKIA! The Nokia Champion Program is a great innitiative from Nokia to support developers and innovators (and they are doing a great job).

I also would like to point you to the upcoming A1-Innovation Days, which are about to take place in Vienna from 26th - 27th September. The event -- which is initiated by mobilkom austria --- is an open platform for developers, start-ups and companys dealing with mobile technology. Nokia will be there as a key sponsor also giving talks and tutorials on different topics. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Google everywhere, anytime. We have google to search, google to chat, google to email, we have Google phones and Google web statistics. So, what's next? The latest Google service is called “Google Voice”. Although it is yags (yet another google service), it is somehow special. So, what is Google Voice? Short and simple: using voice calls like email.

Well, let’s start from the beginning and then see how deep the rabbit hole goes. First of all, the service is still “beta” and only users from the USA (who have a phone number starting with +1) are able to use this service. After registering at the website you get a phone number from google, which will stay forever with you (eg. like your gmail-account).

Multi-Ring

Through the website you can configure this “voice account”. Google allows to forward calls – similar to emails – to different other caller IDs like the one of your cell as well as your land-line phone. This feature is called multi-ring. So if the phone number of the cell changes, you don’t have to bother with it. Simply change it in the web interface and someone who is calling you on your Google-Phone number will not realize the difference.

Forward Calls to Mobile Phone

Google also allows you to setup call filters to “sort” incoming calls (like in Outlook ;-). Eg: all calls after 20.00 are forwarded to your online voice mail (which then is transcribed and sent to your mobile via SMS). Another option is that specific (business) contacts will be forwarded to your voice mail over the weekend, whereas friends still can reach you

The features I like best are call widgets. You create the widget with the website (like a paypal button within paypal) and place this widget (it is actually flash) on your website. Someone who comes to your website simply enters his name and his phone number. Then google calls him and google calls you (like the jajah service). You will not be directly connected to the caller. Your “secretary” first tells you the name of the caller. Then you can decide whether you would like to take the call or redirect the caller to your voice mail.

Voice Mail Inbox

The visualized voice mail box, which can be accessed online, is very convenient. You see all the incoming and outgoing calls over time. Additionally you can listen to all voice mails (which are converted into text thru voice recognition). No mobile network operator has such a service yet, although it would be feasible and very useful for the customer

Of course there is already a special client for android that allows you to use all the services smoothly on your mobile as well. The iPhone client actually was not released yet by Apple. There is also already a BlackBerry Client and other platforms will be integrated soon.
There are lots of other features as well. As all incoming calls are routed through a google server, this server can provid different services to you such as recording calls, forwarding calls to other devices or do conference calls. (Remember on the Google-Server all the voice calls are bits & bytes …). At the moment also text messages out of the google voice network are free (eg if you are using an android phone or a blackberry with a google voice client).

Where is the Money?

“So where is the money for Google?” you might think. Well, at the moment there is no information on how to generate money out of it. But just have a look, on how Google is making money today: advertisement & long-tail. From my point of view, with this service any company (even a one-man-show) can setup a complex call-management system for eg. Automated answering calls. Additionally small shops with a website on the internet can be contacted by phone within a “click”. This might help retailers to boost business – similar to Google ad. As already mentioned it also can help you to save costs, as google voice can do all the call management for you, if you are on the road for example. Of course google gathers a lot of information on how and why someone is calling someone else. (just like in Google Analytics).
A very interesting scenario also is the following. If you have google voice running on your cell phone, Google knows who you are and where you are. If you surf to a mobile website, you could be connected to the owner of website with a click on button. The owner of the website could also be provided automatically with your phone number and location.

Using Google voice on the mobile phone generates revenue for the MNO, as Google is using ordinary voice calls and not VoIP. Google does not “kill” the MNOs business, but the brand of the MNO and its service will be pushed into the background. I suppose that’s why Apple is still considering allowing Googles App on the iPhone.

Acknowledgment

I’d especially like to thank Christian Kantner from mobilkom austria. There he is dealing with Innovation & technology in the field of m-commerce. He was selected by Google Voice as one of the beta-users and provided me with information and hardware. Thanks Chris!

The time of trials is over today, as mobilkom Austria – Austria’s largest MNO with its brands “A1”, “RedBull mobile” and “bob” – launches a VISA creditcard for all 4,6 mio A1-customers today. With regard to banking, mobilkom Austria is not cooperating with a 3rd party bank because it has its own “A1 Bank” (similar to NTTDoCoMo in Japan; see post earlyer). 10 years after successfully starting with mobile commerce applications in Austria (and still offering more), the leading MNO in the country moves m-commerce to the next level and is soon present in any wallet with a physical credit card. The black card itself looks very noble with is silver fractal and the sliver contacts. Good job, guys.

The product.

It’s a “normal” (not yet contactless) VISA classic card, with several mobile features based on SMS, and an insurance package. The credit card can also be used to participate in mobilkom austria’s loyalty schema “mobilpoints” as well as be used to pay for any mobile and not mobile service in Austria (eg. like the very popular mobile parking ticket in Vienna and train tickets of the federal railways of Austria.) Of course the card can be used on the internet and with all EMVCo compliant POS/card-terminals. The card was already piloted in Vienna during the summer in order to make sure, that it works smoothly with all acquirers (that’s why the card on the photos has already some scratches).

Mobilkom austria now offers several different means of payments to its customers and with its bank it is a central payment process for micro payment transactions as well as macro payments, which for example can be settled by creditcard. For a product marketing point of view, it is a stroke of genius to be present with the brand on a physical card and additionally having the brand on the mobile as well. Additionally card-only based services can now also be serviced by the MNO.

The technology.

The card is a common credit card product, manufactured by Austria Card and issued by A1-Bank. In the backend system the creditcard is linked with the MSISDN of the customer and therefore existing services can enriched with the card (eg. like collecting loyalty points & coupons with the card, that later can be redeemed for handsets or other mobile services.)

The card itself is still a contacted one (with chip & mag-strip) but I suppose they soon will move to contactless (“NFC”) as “VISA paywave” is mentioned in the announcement. As actually no handsets with the secure element on the UICC are available commercially – we are all still waiting for the Nokia 6216 – an ordinary contacted credit card was issued. This is also due to the fact, that no contactless terminals, neither for payment nor for ticketing are available in the Austrian market. Additionally one has to mention, that even if you have a contactless creditcard in our phone, you will always require a contacted one as well, for example if you go abroad to a country where they don’t have contactless terminals yet. Therefore starting with a card-strategy is for my point a clear message. Whereas in the past everyone was talking about the chicken-egg-problem, this issue is fixed with this creditcard now.

For those of you who like playing with EMVCo compliant cards, I’d like to direct you to sausheong‘s blog who describes in detail on how to retrieve the AID of the application in the creditcard. For the lazy ones, try: 0xA0 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x03 0x10 0x10 0x00 ;-)

The future.

“Go contactless” – what else ;-) Dr. Hannes Ametsreiter explicitly mentioned during the press conference that the upcoming generation of NFC handsets will include this contactless card. And I suppose this will not be the only application. mobilkom austria piloted already a VDV-compliant ticketing system in Austria in January 2009. Thus I’m pretty sure that these handsets also will come with a contactless ticketing application as well. Last but not least, mobilkom was not lazy to mention (several times in the press announcement as well as during the press conference) that contactless technology is very important also for retailers. Thus I suppose that we will soon see contactless payment and/or loyalty in austria’s major retail chains. But this is still a guess.

Trusted Services Management & OTA Management.

“Where is the TSM?” you might ask. Good questions. But now let’s think about the following. The MNO can already put the creditcard onto the UICC before issuing. The MNO can also put his public transport application onto the UICC before issuing. And as GlobalPlatform recently released the specifications for OTA management, I think, that “TSM & OTA” will be an integrated component of MNO, creditcard, payment, ticketing or loyalty platforms as you need applications & a backend that go hand in hand with your daily business. Different applications have different needs, different Service providers have different needs and different MNOs have different needs. Thus even if you have a readymade platform, there is a lot of effort to integrated it into systems of banks, MNOs and other card issuing companies. And don’t forget: TSM is not only the remote management of the secure element, but much more. But of course I might be wrong – in this case you are invited to post your opinion right below. You’re welcome.

The open Issues.

There are lots of discussions about open issues when starting with NFC. But the window of opportunity is not open forever. Question is: what does the customer really need? I think it is important to keep it simple stupid. Industry has to work more customer focused in my opinion. Five different secure elements with 100 different apps are not what we have for 90 % of the customers in 2020. NFC was standardized in 2002, the NFC Forum is working since 2004, UICC standards like SWP & HCI are available since 2008. So get the technology and just do it. (like NTT DoCoMo did already 10 years ago – and they are doing a nice job).

The Summary.

Okay, let’s see what we have in Austria today:

• Customers who like NFC - check
• MNO & Bank infrastructure ready - check
• Additionally applications such as smartposters and contactless ticketing – check
• Solution to start with services based on a card today - check
• NFC handsets for the mass market – hopefully coming within the next weeks (so: check ;-)
• SWP enabled UICCs – available by manufacturers (so: check)
• Contactless Terminals at POS – mhm, still waiting.

This makes me really excited. I hope you too.

The conclusion.

The MNOs is not only providing voice, text and data services but also financial ones. Now you can pay with your MNO’s product anywhere, anytime. Then we have contactless ticketing for public transport and I suppose where will be soon contactless event ticketing as well (eg. mobilkom is the major sponsors of “The Lifeball”, which would be a nice event to use contactless ticketing). I’m really looking forward to the next months and see how this strategy is evolving … I’ll keep you posted.

Further Information.

http://www.A1visakarte.at/

http://www.A1.net/VISAKarte/

http://www.telekomaustria.com/ir/news/2009/0908-credit-card.php

http://www.A1bank.at/

http://www.visaeurope.at/

"Yes, we can!" might be the answer from Nokia. As you might have read my early reviews, the E71 is -- from my point of view -- the best device Nokia every made for business user. So, question is: How can you improve such a device?

Well, first of all keep all the "good" features: solid material, great design, impressive uptime, very convenient management of communication (email etc.) and awesome keyboard. So where is place for improvement? Well, there is like place, but let's head for that one.

• At first there is the camera of the E71. That one definitely is not state-of-the-art in 2009. So Nokia decided to head for a 5 Mpix Sensor with auto focus and on-chip image processing feature for different operation modes. This gives you a nice opportunity to take great pictures with your new E72 business phone.
• Secondly the E72 comes with a 3,5 mm audio plug. This is one of the features I loved most from the 5800. Simply take the headphones you like or simply connect your phone to your stereo with an ordinary audio cable. I can even connect my AKG headphone to my phone now - great!
• To most impressive innovation is the optical Navi(tm)-pad. It allows simple navigation and scrolling without pressing buttons. Simply move your finger over the sensor to navigate on your device. Very very nice.

All together: Good Job Nokia! The E72 is definitely a worthy successor of the E71.

Link: Nokia E72

I recently came along several research resports, executive summarys and management consultants presentations dealing with NFC. The authors tend to take the content of this blog (text and pictures) 1:1 into their reports/presentations (actually including typos ;-) and they charge customers lot of money for "their" research and "their" work. I think everyone knows today about copyright law -- doing such things is simply not allowed.

Therefore: If you would like to use material (text or pictures) from this blog for commercial reasons or publication puropose, you do require my permission. (Just send me a message thru Forum Nokia or gerald.madmayr - AT - gmx.at).

Of course, you always have asked yourself. "Where did the put the antenna in those NFC Phones?" -- So, after opening serveral devices, here are a couple of pictures, which illustrate where manufacturer put the antenna of their NFC Devices. After opening the devices, they have been put togehter again and are of course working. Thanks to Michael Roland for his Efford in this case!

Nokia 3220

The Nokia 3220 host the NFC Functionality in the external Shell. On the PCB you can cleary see the antenna at the edge. The Antenna is very close the reference design for an ISO 14443 reader/writer device.

Nokia 6131

Nokia's 6131 is probalby the best know NFC device yet. The antenna design itself is quite special and especially dedicated to touch-interacts. But as there is no touchmark on the device itself, it might be a bit tricky for a user to know, how to put two NFC devices together to establish a communcation.

Sagem X700n

Sagem's devices is using the 2nd version of the SWP protocoll for the communcation with the UICC. The device is make for emulation as well as reading/writing Type-B Task. P2P is not implemented yet. Like Nokia's 3220, the antenna is in the backside of phone in the cover for the battery.

Nokia 6212

Nokia's most recent NFC device came up with a new approach for the antenna design. In this case, the antenna is integrated into the body of the phone. This design allows to establish communication with other NFC devices without requiering a special touch area. A backdraft of this design is the case, that there are problems when reading smaller tags. Nokia announced that this issue will be fixed in the upcoming 6216.

Benq T80

The Benq T80 come with a secure Element on a micro-SD Card. The Benq has an antenna inside the battery-cover, which is protected by a fero-magnetic shield. The Antenna has the size of the reference antenna as in the Nokia 3220 and is connected thru a two-pin connector with the body of the device.

While NFC is not flying yet in the western world, contactless payment and ticketing is already a commodity in Japan. In the following, I’d like to give some insights into Felica from a business as well as from a technological perspective. Special Thanks in this regard to Jan Michael Hess, CEO of Mobile Economy Germany, for pointing me to this topic.

Felica Technology

With Regard to RF Technology, Felica use the 13,56 MHz band and a 8 % - 30 % ASK Modulation and therefore is compliant with the NFC Standard for communication speeds at 212 kbit and 424 kbits. Felica offers an unsecured and a secure communication mode. The application layer on top of Sony’s smartcard is proprietary, but the communication layer is partly mirrored in the NFC-Fourm Type 3 Specification (only cover polling, read, write) as well in the Japanese Industrial Standard JIS X6319-4 (JIS does not cover the encryption and the key generation)

That the moment Sony has two off-the-self readers available: The PaSoRi Reader RC-S230 only supports Felcia whereas the new RC-S330 also supports NFC. With regard to the NFC functionality, Sony has not yet released any specification, but already during the installation of the driver for the RC-S330, you will see a “felciaport_nfc.dll” being copied to your hard disk. Both readers come with an USB interface, which allows you to  extend the of Felcia/NFC capabilities of nearly any device. (e.g. Sony’s PS3 for example). In Japan there are already several consumer electronic devices out in the market offering a Felica port (Vaio Notebooks, Bravia TVs). With regard to the installation of the RC-S230, there is currently a language support issue and therefore the current driver (the Japanese one) can only be installed on a Japanese Windows – but the international driver is currently under construction, I was recently assured.

If you would like to start developing with Felica, I’d recommend to get a PaSoRi Reader first (http://www.photoatm.com/). In case you are heading for low-level protocol programming, have a look at these two projects at Sourceforge, using the PaSoRi Reader Driver. (http://felicalib.tmurakam.org/ or http://libpasori.sourceforge.jp/). The other way around, if you have an NFC Device, you also can play with a Felica reader: By sending Felica-Frames (F-Frames) using low-level NFC-Commands in NFC-Target-Mode, the Felica reader will think, he is talking to a Felica Card. Funny, isn’t it? Actually these low-leve NFC-Commands are not support by JSR257 (J2ME), because they require the control over the full NFC-Stack in the device. A good starting point to try this yourself, are NFC-Readers supporting the NFC-Target mode.

If you would like to play with cards and applications on cards, you will need to get one of Sony’s Professional SDKs. These SDKs allow you to format cards and create Felica-Areas (Directories) and Felica-Services (Files). Similar to the Mifare Application Directory (MAD), Felica cards hold a Service Code List (SCL) indicating the applications on the card. With the SDK you are able to modify all this information on the cards.

So far for the technology – let’s have a look at the Felic Business Side.

The Japanese Market

Let’s start off with some market figures. In Japan, there are approximately 107 Mio. Mobile Subscribers who have a contract with one of the four different MNOs (Market shares are: NTTDoCoMo 50,7 %, KDDI/au 28,7 %, Softbank 19,2 % and Emobile 1,4 %). Assuming that Japan has a population of 128 Mio, the market penetration is around 83 %. The 3G penetration of all subscribers is around 90 %.

A Brief History on the Success of Felica in Japan

• November 18th, 2001: Introduction of SUICA (Super Urban Intelligent Card) at Japan Rail; 424 stations involved.
• March 2002: Felica is certified by Common Criteria according to EAL4 in 2002.
• April 9th, 2003: Sony, NTTDoCoMo and a couple of banks form a joint venture “bitWallet” for a mobile contactless payment schema called EDY (Euro - Dollar - Yen).
• October 2003 - February 2004: Setup of Felica Networks, a Trusted Service Manager for Felica (by Sony and NTTDoCoMo).
• July 10th 2004: Introduction of Mobile Felica by NTTDoCoMo and the mobile Wallet: Osaifu-Keitai; 
• September 9th, 2005: au by KDDI licences Felica/Osaifu-Keitai
• November 11th, 2005: Softbank licences Felica/Osaifu-Keitai
• January 28th, 2006: Launch of mobile Suica as part of Osaifu-Keitai 
• August, 2006: EDY (by bitWallet) is offered by more than 40.000 Retails shops
• November 2006: Mobile Suica is used by 120.000 mobile Subscribers of NTTDoCoMo
• March 18th, 2007 Launch of PASMO: 27 Railway companies, 32 Bus Operators join PASMO
• April 13th, 2007: 520.000 electronic payments/day in offline Shops/POS
• April 1st, 2007: 20 Mio. SUICA Cards in Circulation, 430.000 mobile SUICA users; 2127 JR Stations SUICA enabled; 22,150 offline Shops and 7,000 online Shop accept SUICA
• November 14th, 2007: NXP Semiconductors and Sony create Moversa, a joint venture for universal contactless solutions.
• March 2008: More than 50 % of all Handset support mobile Felica; Mobile Felica will be integrated into each new handset.
• May 2008: McDonalds start e-Couponing using Osaifu Keitai
• January 2009: 21 Mio. SUICA Cards in Circulation, 1 Mio. Mobile SUICA users
• April 2009: 11 Mio. PASMO Card in Circulation

Out of the history one can see, that the whole system is more or less under control by Sony and NTTDoCoMo. Due the big success of mobile Felica in NTT’s devices, the other operators got under pressure had to licence the technology, which is good business for Sony/NTT. But on the other hand a lot of time and money was invested into the development of the technology. There are rumours saying, that KDDI and Softbank have to pay licence feeds of 10 USD for the integration of mobile Felica in a device, which seams to be a good deal, when comparing it with the numbers of subscribers mentioned in above.

Suica – Transportation in Japan

Japan Rail started with R&D on automated Fare collection (AFC) systems already in 1987 and introduced magnet stripe cards in 1992. Then they worked together with Sony and other Silicon Manufactures on contactless systems, playing with microwaves as well as battery operated Cards in Trials in 1994, 1995 and 1997. After lots of affords, in 2001 the SUICA Card was released. The big advantages of Felica over Magnet Stripe cards are on the one hand reliability (as there are no mechanical parts in a contactless system) and processing time (700 ms for magnet stripe vs 200 ms for contactless card).

By starting with contactless cards, the rollout process was not as complicated as when using mobile Felica handsets only. Secondly, the TSM (Felcia Networks) was already founded in the very beginning, and therefore all rolls where set. Japan Rail later joined Felica Networks and now holds a share around 5 % (Sony: 57 %, NTT DoCoMo 38 %).

Conclusion

I have been to Japan two times now, and the technology is really amazing. It works fast, convenient and you can use it for payment and ticketing. And although there are thousands of people walking thru the gates, the system works very reliable. I’m really looking forward to this technology coming to Europe. Japan is already five years head of time whereas NFC in Europe is not moving forward for some time now. Hopefully things are changing, which Nokia rolling out their new Nokia 6216 supporting SWP and the UICC as the Secure Element.

Terms

Felica: Felcia (Felicity Card) is a contactless smartcard (PICC) produced of Sony. The card is neither compatible with ISO14443-A or –B but is now covered in the ISO/IEC 18092 for NFC. Parts of Felica are mirrored in JIS 6319-4 as well as the NFC-Forum Type Tag 3, but don’t cover the whole command set of Felica which is proprietary. Felica can operate in secured (using 3DES encryption) and unsecured mode.

Felica Networks: Felica Networks was initially founded by Sony and NTT DoCoMo, later Japan Rail joined them. Felica Networks is running the Trusted Service Management (TSM) for the Felica Ecosystem consisting for contactless readers, cards and handsets. Felica Networks allows the OTA Management and installation of application in mobile Felica Handsets.

Suica: Suica is contactless Smartcard based on Felica being used by Japan Rail for Fare Collection at their Gates.

Mobile Suica: Mobile Suica is the representation of the Suica-Card in a mobile device featuring Felica.

Osaifu-Keitai: Osaifu-Keitai is a mobile Wallet Schema introduced and implemented by NTTDocomo. The wallet is able to hold different smartcard applications such as mobile Suica, EDY, iD or Loyalty cards. The brand “Osaifu Keitai” is registered by NTTDoCoMo is stands for contactless Technology in a handset.

PASMO: Like Suica, PASMO is a contactless smartcard being used by different public transport operators in Japan.

You are trying to start with NFC Development? You are familiarly with coding and have devices and Tags? But nothing is working? Well then, this might be due to the different RF-layers that are used in the Domains of proximity Technology.

“Why does he write ‘proximity Technology’?`” you might ask. Well, all of the terms mentioned above have something to do with contactless technology, which might be integrated into handsets for “Near Field Communication”. Today I’d like to focus on the very low layers and why there some systems not talking to each other.

Let’s start of with ISO/IEC 14443. This is actually the standard for contactless smartcards and is divided into four parts, giving details on the physical characteristics, the RF-modulation and the format for data exchange, namely APDUs. But during standardization, two major players could not agree on how the RF modulation (in Part 2) should be implemented. There for the standards includes two completely different options for the RF modulation, named Type-A and Type-B. Where as smartcard usually only support one type, an ISO/IEC 14443 reader (also referred to as PCD – Proximity Coupling Device) needs to be able to support both types. The layers no top (3 & 4) are the same then for both Types. Type-B cards are mainly used in France and francophone countries. More details on the different types can be found in the table below as well as in the RFID-Handbook by Klaus Finkenzeller (which is the reference book for Contactless Technology)

Fig 2.: Matrix of different Contactless RF-Layers

Mifare (Classic) – a product of NXP Semiconductors – is a contactless smartcard based on ISO/IEC 14443-A. But in this case, the layer 4 (APDUs) is not implemented but a proprietary cryptographic algorithms (CRYPTO-1) used to encrypt this connection. A Mifare card can hold 1 or 4 KB of Memory to store data. Other products of NXP are Desfire (using no or 3DES encryption, 4 KB of memory) and Mifare Ultralight (96+ Bytes of memory, no encryption). Mifare is actually the most popular contactless smartcard in the world with more that 1,5 billion pieces sold around the world. Lot’s of public transport schemas such as Oyster (Transport for London) use Mifare for Ticketing. Also the RFID-Ticktes for the Football World Champion Ship 2006 in Germany were based on Mifare Technology.

UPDATE: I' actually missed to mention Calypso - also referred to as Type-B'. Calypso is a transport application implemented by the Calypso network. On RF-Layer, B' is aquivilant to ordinary type B, but the protocoll on top is proprietary. Allthough there is a Calypso implementation on Java Cards as well, which would allow to load this applcation in to ordinary JavaCards or Secure Element of NFC Devices (which then should support Type-B for the Modulation)

Felica is a contactless cards produced by Sony, which is mainly used in Japan. Felica is used in public transport (Suica/Japan Rail), for contactless micro payments and room keys in hotels. Felica is neither based on type-a nor Type-B, but has its own modulation schema (sometimes also referred to as type-F). For the communication with Felica cards, a reader has to send so called “F-Frames” to the card, which are similar to APDUs. For the communication with Felica cards, there are different modes (mode-0, -1) allowing also unencrypted communication, but unfortunately there is no documentation available on that.  Felica used a 3DES for the encryption of the communication, but as the protocol itself is proprietary one else then Sony is able to build these cards. Until 2007 Sony sold about 200 million pieces of Felica Cards.

Fig. 1: Market Penetration of Contactless Smartcards (Taken from NXP Presenation at NFC Congress 2007 by Felix Marx)

So how does NFC fit in here now? Well, lets’ have a closer look at ISO/IEC 18092 (NFC is also standardized in EMCA340/380) first, which is the standard for NFCIP-1. In this standard it is defined, that Type-A is used for communication between active and passive device for a communication speed with 106 kbit and then use Type-F for communication speeds 212 and 424 kbit. An ISO/IEC 18092 compliant device thus is able to act as a ISO/IEC 14443-A Target or Reader as well as read and emulate Felica cards (at least establish a connection on physical layer). So know can I emulate a ISO14443 card or a Felica card without the according smartcard chip? Well the solutions quite simple: just send the according Frames over the RF-Layer and the reader outside will believe he is talking to a smartcard. But in order to do so, you will need to have low-level access to the communication interfaces of the NFC-Chip. Such “tricks” are not possible with the JSR257 as this is a high level API. This ISO/IEC 18092 standard also defines a protocol – NFCIP1 – which allows two devices (there a device also could be a passive tag!) to exchange data, which then actually “real” Near Field Communication according to this standard.

So, is there no Type-B in the World of NFC you might ask? Good question. For a physical layer perspective - no. This is due to take fact, that NFC (ISO 18092!) was invented jointly by NXP and Sony and therefore only their needs are covered in this standard. As the specification of the integration of NFC-Technology (which covers ISO 18092 as well as ISO 14443 in active and passive mode) into devices is driven by the NFC-Forum, it is likely that also Type-B will be support by “NFC-Forum-Compliant” devices.

 And what about the upcoming Nokia 6216, what does it support? I made a compatability matrix (but don't take this information for granted!)

Fig. 3: Modes of the Nokia 6216 (Taken from a Nokia Presenation at WIMA 2009 by Saku Sulander)

A nice overview is given here: Philips-NFC-vs-ISO14443-vs-Felica-SLIDES.pdf (taken from www.proxmark.org)