European consortium starts first public trial of NFC interoperability in Italy

Tourists to use technology in multiple infotainment and point of sale applications
Rome, October 30, 2008 – StoLPaN, the pan-European consortium driving adoption of NFC, has announced details of the first public trial of NFC that will integrate this emerging contactless technology in the Dolomite skiing resorts of North East Italy. Tourists visiting selected hotels will be provided with NFC-enabled mobile phones and smart cards that can be used securely in multiple environments in their resort for applications that use different devices and connection technologies including NFC, SMS and barcodes.
Use cases being trialled include delivery of up-to-date ski and weather reports to phones when devices are waved past NFC-enabled active posters, and integration of NFC with SMS and barcodebased infrastructures in bars, restaurants and shops to offer customer loyalty schemes. For example a coupon picked up from a smart poster offering discounts at a local restaurant, might be redeemed through the NFC phone using a SMS or barcode system later that evening.

“Widespread adoption of NFC applications requires simplicity for users. Being able to integrate this exciting technology with existing contactless, MIFARE and barcode environments is crucial to achieve this,” commented Florent Frederix, Head of Sector RFID, Information Society and Media Directorate General, European Commission. “This first open interoperability trial will be a key milestone in positioning Europe as a globally competitive player in the NFC area which will become an important technology for the emerging Internet of Things.”
“The trial requires us to bring together different technologies and partners to support our common goal,” commented Francesco Prato, Executive Vice President Ennova Research. “We expect the service and platform deployed in the Veneto region will be ready for widespread commercial deployment in 2010, coinciding with the integration of NFC into significant numbers of mobile phones.”

The trial, organized by StoLPaN, is being managed by research company Ennova Research, and relies on the support of Cattid of the University of Rome, the Regione Veneto local government and AFF Hungary. The trial will use different types of NFC-enabled phones, contactless point of sales terminals from Ingenico, NFC and MIFARE technology by NXP Semiconductors, the service platform by Ennova Research and the security levels by the University of Technology of Graz.

About StolPaN
The ‘Store Logistics and Payment with NFC’ (StoLPaN) project, co-funded by the European Union (EU), Information Society Technology (IST) program, aims to define open commercial and technical frameworks for NFC-enabled services on mobile devices. This will facilitate the deployment of NFC enabled mobile applications across a wide range of vertical markets, regardless of the phone type and the nature of the services required. The consortium members are AFF, Auto-ID-Lab St. Gallen, Banca Popolare di Vicenza, Bull, Baker&McKenzie, Consorzio Triveneto S.P.A., Consult Hyperion, Deloitte, Ennova Research, Fornax, IQSYS, Libri, Motorola, NXP, Safepay Systems, Sun Microsystems, as well as the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, the Budapest Tech John von Neumann Faculty of Informatics, the Sheffield Hallam University and the La Sapienza- University of Rome. More information can be found at the project website www.stolpan.com

ENDS
For further press information, please contact:
Akhila Deshpande
Text 100 Public Relations
Tel. 020 88460789
akhila.deshpande@text100.co.uk