AT&T to trial end-to-end hosted RFID services

- Edited by Gary Thayer

Sept. 14, 2005 -- (MobileVillage) -- AT&T today announced customer trials starting early next year of a managed, end-to-end, hosted Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) service, making AT&T the first U.S. network and managed services provider to offer such a service.

AT&T also announced that it has joined EPCglobal US, an affiliate of EPCglobal Inc, serving subscribers in the United States to help foster the adoption of the EPCglobal Network and related technology. The EPCglobal Network combines RFID technology, existing communications network infrastructure, and the Electronic Product Code (EPC) data.

During the 90-day RFID service trials, AT&T will design, deploy and manage integrated, end-to-end RFID networks, which extend from AT&T's IP network and Internet Data Centers into customer-premises infrastructure, including RFID readers, edge devices and software, local area networks, firewalls and routers. The new service integrates AT&T's services-network integration and consulting, IP transport, hosting, storage, managed applications and security.

According to AT&T, the managed RFID service is designed to support contactless payment, the latest trend in retail payment applications because of its speed and convenience, as well as asset tracking, asset management and security applications for the manufacturing, transportation, retail and government sectors.

The RFID trials will leverage AT&T's IP network, secure Internet Data Centers, managed services, and its integrated Global Enterprise Management System (iGEMS). Developed by AT&T Labs, iGEMS is a network management platform that enables AT&T to monitor and manage performance across customer networks, servers and applications, enabling AT&T to predict and solve problems before they become evident to a customer.

RFID is one of the key technologies behind the emerging trend in extending IP to enable the autonomous networking of physical objects, such as pallets, cars and cattle, with embedded sensors and chips. AT&T is looking at RFID as one of the first remote sensors that will enable this autonomous networking, which could give businesses and government agencies unprecedented visibility into their supply chains.

"Today, most RFID applications are designed for inventory and asset tracking," says Hossein Eslambolchi, AT&T chief technology officer and president of AT&T Labs. "The goal is to eventually have RFID on every item in the supply chain, which will usher in a new wave of object to object communication and collaboration."

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