Gerald Madlmayr's Forum Nokia Blog

mobilkom austria rolls out VISA credit card in Austria.

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:12:41 +0200

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/

NFC Phones - Open up! or Where to put the Antenna in an NFC Phone.

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:29:43 +0200

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.

Felica, Suica & Osaifu-Keitai – The Japanese Way of NFC.

Wed, 20 May 2009 19:43:18 +0200

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.

ISO 14443, ISO 18092, Type-A, Type-B, Type-F, Felica, Calypso NFCIP, NFC … – HELP!

Sat, 16 May 2009 11:38:50 +0200

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)

Interview with the NFC Guru

Wed, 13 May 2009 22:59:38 +0200

There is a nice interview with me in the current issue of the “Regarding ID” magazine, which can be downloaded here. (starting on Page 40).

Nokia 6216: Nokia’s first UICC based NFC enabled device.

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:16:16 +0200

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.

Do-it-yourself NFC Phone

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:56:48 +0100

You are complaining that there are to few NFC phones on the market? Well here is an idea, on how to do that yourself:

This actually also was the idea of six students at our University in Hagenberg, studying Embedded Systems Design. They decided to head for a project where they are integrating NFC technology in the open-source mobile phone “Neo-Runner” (aka Open-Moko). Therefore during the summer holidays already a prototype using the Open-Moko and the OpenPCD has been used to gain RFID Functionality on the phone.

The project is run under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Josef Langer, who is also Head of the NFC Research Lab in Hagenberg. The overall Goal of the project is to implement a reference design for an NFC device. Thus there are several challenges to overcome

Of course, connect the NFC-Controller somehow to the phone. This wasn’t a big issue, as the phone has a I2C interface, that allowed us to connect NXP’s NFC Reference Board using a serial connection.
Secondly we do need a driver for talking to the Reference board. This is currently work in progress. Also the students are currently dealing with the antenna design for the device.
Upcoming challenges are the redesign of the hardware to fit into the tiny slot above the SIM-Card into the back of the mobile as well as integrating the antenna into the device. The Reference design also includes a connector to the UICC using the Single Wire Protocol (SWP).

The project is now up and running for 8 weeks and we are hopefully able to present the first prototype at the NFC Congress 2009 in Hagenberg. I’ll keep you posted on the progress of this project. In case this project turns out to be a successfully intergration, the next device we are heading for is the N810, as it is also based on Linux ;-)

Serial Connector smoothly integrated into the back of the phone

NFC Hardware using the I2C Interface of the phone.

OpenMoko Reading a Mifare Card

NFC: From Technology to Applications.

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:35:16 +0200

One of the most important features of an NFC device, is its Card Emulation capability. Thru the handset, the Smartcard gets a display, a keyboard to interact with and even a network connection. Ticket or Cash thus can be transferred over-the-air (OTA) to the mobile device and be stored there in the secure chip, until the Card Emulation Functionality is used. Thus today I’d like to give some examples how NFC Application for Ticketing or Payment could work:

Ticketing

The user first touches a smartposter with his NFC Handset. The NFC Handset is able to read the tag that is sticked from behind to the poster. The NDEF on the Tag redirects the Handset browser to an online store, where the ticket can be purchased. The ticket then is stored in an online ticket server, with a reference to the credentials stored in the secure chip. When the user touches the reader at the gate, the credentials are retrieved by the reader. Then the systems checks whether there is a ticket available and then grants the access.

Payment

The value of the wallet is read in the beginning by the vending machine (34,12 EUR). Then the user chooses a product (I don't know why the button actually is pressed twice.) and the pays simply by putting the handset to the reader. Then you see the amount of 33,12 EUR at the wallet (1 EUR for a coke, that okay isn't it?). When you again waive the handset in front of the vending machine, the display shows 33,12 EUR. And it's the same for the coffee machine: choose product, wave phone in front of reader (integrated into coffee machine).

Wallet

This video show an NFC Wallet (J2ME) on a Samsung x700n. When the handset is held to the reader in the coffee machine in the beginning, the value (16,52 EUR) is read out of the secure element by the coffee machine (only the coffee machine with the correct access keys can do that!). Then the user starts the wallet applications. It shows -- as we already know -- that the wallet contains the amount of 16,52 EURs.Then the user chooses to top up 10 EUR. The money is then loaded securly into the secure element of the phone. During this operation, the secure element is access "internal" (thru the J2ME application) At the end of the month, the money topped out is billed to the consumer thru his mobile phone bill. At the end, the handset is again in tag emulation mode and the value is read by the coffee machine (26,52 EUR).

Information Exchange

We use this service at our campus: it's called information take-way and uses the NFC peer-2-peer mode. The user first has to select the information yunks he wants to receive in an online portal. At the kiosk, he has just top open the application (due to some design issues of the phone this has to be done manually) on the phone and put it on the kiosk. The the information is syncrhonized with the mobile and the user can read the information offline. We offer individual timetables for students, the different menus at the cafeteria and several news-feeds.

NFC: Touch is the new click.

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:02:47 +0200

Today I’d like to give a basic introduction into NFC (Near Field Communication). It will give a rough overview over the technology and smartcards.

Motivation

The idea behind NFC was to invent a new killer application of a mobile device – but what is it? It’s not payment, not ticketing and not BT pairing. It is every day life. So what can you help during every day life? You have a bunch of keys in our pockets, so what about making access easier? There are several cards and coins in your wallet, and for sure you don’t have the change when you need it ;-) So let’s put a technology into mobile devices that allows us exactly to do this with our most personal device: the mobile phone. And in 2004 Sony, Philips and Nokia agreed on starting to work on this technology, and they called it NFC.

NFC Starter

NFC is a wireless communication technology to cover distances up to 10 cm, possible data rates are 106, 212 or 424 kBit/sec. A “classic” NFC transaction doesn’t take too long, about 200- 500 ms in order to keep the user experience good. User experience is actually the “key” behind NFC. The technology provides an easy and intuitive interaction, like a simple touch. You probably know this kind of contactless transaction already from one of your contactless smartcards you use for payment, access or ticketing and as you may have experienced, the time for the transaction is quite short – and that’s good. Or would you like to wait 10 seconds until the door opens? (Also think of the people queuing behind you!)

Smartcards & RFID

Depending on the standard use, these cards are either proximity cards (according to ISO 14443) or vicinity cards (according to ISO 15693). Both standards use the so popular RFID Technology, so I'll talk about that first. RFID standard for Radio Frequency Identification. The technology bases in the inductive coupling of two coils/antennas. Depending on the antennas and the power used to generate the electro mangentic field, distances starting from some centimeters up to several meters can be briged by using RFID Technology. There are several different frequencies used in the RFID Industry, popular ones are: 125 kHz, 13,56 Mhz (used by ISO14443, ISO15693, ISO18092) or 900 Mhz. In an RFID System there is usually an active reader, that generates the electro mangentic field and a passive transponder (tag, smartcard) that is powered by this field (and thus needs no battery). After the passive part is powered, the communication is established and both parties can exchange data. The active part (reader) emitting the field is also called initiator where as the passive one (waiting for the initiator) is called target. So far for the electro magenetic stuff (from a very basic, theoretical side) and back to the smartcards.

13,56 MHz

As already mentioned both proximity and vinicity card use 13,56 Mhz and therefore are compatible on the very low (physical) layer of communcation. ISO 15693 actually is not considered by the NFC Forum – the standardization body for NFC – thus, I will not give further details on this standard. During the standardization of ISO 14443 the two major players (Infineon, Philips; now NXP) could not agree on a modulation schema, thus there are two different one: ISO 14443-A (Philips, now NXP & Co.) and ISO 14443-B (Infineon & Co. ). There are several popular products using ISO 14443, like the RFID Passport. One of the most widely used RFID Card is Mifare. Mifare is not compliant to ISO 14443 on all levels (only 1 – 3) as it implements a proprietary cipher. Several public transport Systems, like London (Oyster) or Hongkong (Octopus) use Mifare. The cipher actually was broken in 2008. In Japan Sony has introduced its one contactless Smartcard: Felcia; there it is used for Payment & Public Transport (Suica). Felcia is neither ISO14443-A nor –B. NFC Devices in the further should be able to overcome all this different smartcard standards and should be able to talk to any of these contactless smartcards or reader.

NFC (= ISO18092) vs. NFC Device

When talking about NFC, I'd first like to clarivy two terms: when talking about "pure" NFC, I'm talking about ISO18092, which specifies the NFC peer-2-peer mode. (see Operating Modes). When talking about an NFC device, I'm talking about an NFC device like a handset, that features also other operating modes, like reading smartcards or acting as a passive tags.

Operating Modes

This brings me now to the different operating Modes of an NFC Device:

Reader/Writer Mode: This mode is also called PCD (Proximity Coupling Device), as in this case the NFC device emits an electro magnetic field, that powers a passive transponder. Operating in this mode, the NFC device can read and alter data stored in NFC compliant passive (without battery) transponders. Such tags can be found on SmartPoster e. g., allowing the user to retrieve additional information by reading the tag with the NFC device. Depending on the data stored on the tag, the NFC device takes an appropriate action without any user interaction. If a URI was found on the tag, the handset would open a web browser for example. An NFC device can read the data format of the Tag, which is call NDEF (NFC Data Exchange Format). NFC Devices must be capable of reading different ISO14443 tags and Felica.
Card Emulation: An NFC device can also act as smart card (ISO 14443) after being switched into card emulation mode. In this case an external reader cannot distinguish between a smart card and an NFC device. This mode is useful for contactless payment and ticketing applications for example. Actually, an NFC enable handset is capable of storing different contactless smartcard applications in one device.
Peer-to-Peer: The NFC peer-to-peer mode (ISO 18092) allows two NFC enabled devices to establish a bidirectional connection to exchange contacts, Bluetooth pairing information or any other kind of data. Cumbersome pairing processes are a thing of the past thanks to NFC technology. To establish a connection a client (NFC peer-to-peer initiator) is searching for a host (NFC peer-to-peer target) to setup a connection. Then the NDEF (NFC Data Exchange Format) is used to transmit the data.

Great new world

The great thing about NFC devices now is that you don’t only have passive transponder or an RFID reader, but also a display and a keyboard to interact. Secondly, there is no air time that will be billed by the operator when using NFC (but if you open URL, of course, a GRPS connection is opened billed). And: the transaction is only made by intention, as the range is very short. It’s not like Bluetooth that can send data over several meters. NFC only works within some centimetres. This also helps to provide a better user interaction. Let’s say: I want to pay now. So I touch this reader. Payment done. (without pressing _one_ single button!) Or: You take a picture, you touch a printer and it is printed. You don't have to care about anything like pairing devices. NFC can do that for you. NFC will make life and interaction more simple, as world already is too complicated.

Device Integration

NFC technology integrated in a mobile device typically consists of two integrated circuits. The NFC controller is required for the analog digital conversion of the signals transferred over the proximity connection. An HCI (host controller interface) allows the host controller to set the operating modes of the NFC controller and process data sent and received. The second IC, a secure smartcard chip also referred to as the secure element, is used for the tag emulation mode. The secure element is connected to the NFC controller for proximity transactions (external mode e. g. for payment at point of sale ) through the Single-Wire Protocol (SWP). The host-controller as well is able to exchange data with the secure element (internal mode e. g. for top up of money into the secure element over the air ). In order to access the functionallity with an Application, there a two APIs:

Contactless Communications API (JSR257): This JSR was released in 2006 and describes the necessary interfaces in order to allow contactless transactions with a J2ME application running on the handset. Thus this API makes use of the reader/writer mode as well as the NFC peer-to-peer mode. The JSR257 already implements the NDEF format and the basic RTDs published so far by the NFC-Forum.
Secure and Trust Service API (SATSA, JSR177): The JCP released the SATSA in 2004. The intended goal of this API was to provide cryptographic functionality of a smartcard chip to J2ME applications. Also, the use of a secure storage for DRM certificates and digital signatures was a use case during the definition. With the introduction of NFC and the use of a smartcard chip for tag emulation, this API received a boost in importance. Recently in 2007 a maintenance release was published.

Both APIs allow an application developer to use the functionality of an NFC device. By providing a J2ME API for using NFC technology, the barrier to application developers is lowered in comparison to using proprietary Symbian OS or Windows mobile APIs.

(taken from: "State of Standardization of NFC" by Gerald Madlmayr)

Nokia at the moment offers three different NFC Devices: The Nokia 3220, Nokia 6131 and the Nokia 6212. The Noia 5140 with the RF Shell is not considered as an NFC device, as it only supports Reader/Writer Mode. All three Nokia Models come with an NXP NFC Chips inside (PN511/512 or PN531/532) and SmartMX Secure Memory Chip with a Java Card OS from G&D. The Chip is the same as in a G&D SmartCafe Javacard. The integration of the NXP solution is called smart connect.

(taken from: "NFC und seine Pluspunkte" by Holgar Kunkat)

The solution allows you to switch between internal access of the secure element (eg: a Midlet is reading/write data of the smartcard chip), Active/Initiator Mode (in this case the device activly emits a field) and Passiv/Target/Card Emulation Mode (in this case the device is found by an external reader or other Initiator). This switing of the operating modes is also called "Mode-Switch" (what else *g*) Actually, there is only one mode at a time possible, which causes the following problem: Imaging, you are reading an external tag and would like to use a key, to authenicate, that is stored in the secure element. In this case the midlet requires to read on the one hand site the tag and on the other handset to access the secure element. But you can't do that and you need to implement some kind of work around for that.

Well that's it for day. You should now know the very basics about NFC and how this can be integrated into a device. I'll keep you in the loop and post some more.