Last Friday Nokia announced it’s forth fully NFC enable handset, the Nokia 6216. The most new and sophisticated thing about this device is the fact, that secure element is placed on the UICC (Universal Integrated Circuit Card, SIM Card) and using SWP (Single Wire Protocol) to communicate with the NFC Chip. This is the major difference to the older devices like the 6212, the 6131 as well as the 3220. Although there are already different prototypes from other manufacturers like Sagem’s my700x or phones from NEC and LG, Nokia is there first one to offer such a device commercially. In the presentation Jeremy Belostock, Head of New Technology Introduction, said that the device will be available in Q3/2009. Addtionally it was mentioned, that is this is the last dedicated NFC phone from Nokia – in the future MNOs will just have to tick in their specifications if they require NFC functionality in a mobile or not, as the NFC chip will be part of the upcoming Nokia platforms.

Technology behind the scene.

The Nokia 6216 uses Series 40, 5th Edition as an operating system now supporting also the SATSA/JSR177 (APDU und Crypto-Package) to use the secure element’s functionality. For developers building J2ME applications, there is actually not much of a change, as the platform itself stays the same as the 6216, with some slight differences for the P2P modes, which is not used widely as far. So I suppose there will be not much of difference in the new SDK.

If you are also using the secure element using Mifare or Java Card OS functionality, you might run into some issue, as in the new models, there is no more embedded secure element (!), only the UICC as the secure element is possible. Thus, if you would like to load secure applications in to the UICC, you will need the keys of the UICC, which are only available to the Mobile Network Operator (MNO) and there will be no more unlock-MIDlet for such a UICC-based device. Hence, if you would like to use the UICC for you application, you will have to talk to the MNO. That’s the game. And as I always said: The secure element is not a playground -- try to avoid using it for "simple" applications. Because putting a secure applet into the UICC is much more difficult (from an administrative point of view) than it was in the past with embedded smartcard chips.

The NFC Chip inside the mobile phone therefore supports SWP (Single Wire Protocol). At the moment there are two IC-Manufacturers offering such products: Inside Contactless as well as NXP Semiconductors. Although is was no officially said, I’m quite sure, that Nokia uses NXP’s Platform (PN544) as all the former devices came with NXP Chips was well. But let’s see. Besides the NFC Chip, also the UICC needs to support SWP. Therefore “old” SIM Cards can not be used for NFC use cases which are based on the secure element. This will result in MNOs changing their SIM Cards. Currently there are products from all major UICC manufacturers offering such functionality like Gemalto, Oberthure or G&D for example. From these players there are special SDKs available for their SIM-Cards. If you want to start using the SIM-Cards in your apps, you will need to get these SDKs as well. (as wel as the Keys from the MNOs!)

The Solution to all problems?

There was lot of discussion in the past, about the Chicken-and-Egg-Problem in the World of NFC. But with this device, Nokia satisfies the needs of the GSMA (Global Association of all MNOs) and allows the MNOs to manage the applications in the UICC. Therefore the TSM (Trusted Services Managers) will be like to be closely working together with the MNOs to get this business quickly up and running. (eg. All Swiss Operators recently decided to team up and head for one country wide solution for NFC payments).

From my point of you, Nokia made a very important step and offing such a device commercially, which is important to the NFC ecosystem. In the past, most players blamed the Handset Manufacturers for not offering NFC/SWP enabled devices – but honestly, the silicon simple was not available and MNOs did not order devices with embedded secure element.

Now it is up the industry (payment & ticketing) to start rolling out services, so that there is demand for devices and UICC. This will help MNOs to order such devices and UICC (which is quite some investment) and start with NFC service.

• Nokia S40, 5th Edition SDK
• Nokia 6212 NFC SDK
• Standard on SWP (Single Wire Protocol) by ETSI