RFID tags, which are now being used to replace bar codes for product tracking, are moving to a global network. This will enable companies to find product details via the internet, and could be used to locate and learn about individual items. For example, the bar code on a bottle of medicine probably tells you the name of the product and its manufacturer, but the same bar code appears on every bottle. By contrast, each product could have a unique RFID (radio frequency identification) tag. Thus it could be possible to find out when and where the medicine was made, how it travelled from the factory to the shop, when it was sold and who bought it.
VeriSign, the company that manages the internet's root directory service for the .com and .net domains, has been hired to provide the ONS (Object Naming Service) for RFID tags. It plans to run it on the same servers as the internet's DNS (Domain Name System): VeriSign spokesman Patrick Burns says these now handle about 10bn lookups per day, and can scale to 100bn.
Jon Brendsel, director of EPC Network Services at VeriSign, says: "This is a global service, and we think that's a key reason why VeriSign was chosen. We can provide a service on that scale with very high service levels."
It is not an appointment that will be universally applauded, because of VeriSign's attempt to make money from failed DNS calls by diverting them to its own SiteFinder system. Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ordered VeriSign to turn it off. However, Neil Macehite, research director at the Ovum consultancy, was not surprised by the choice. "No other organisation springs to mind that has got the pedigree, the infrastructure and the commercial business model to do this," he says.
The contract has been placed, on undisclosed terms, by EPCglobal, the international standards organisation that looks after EPCs (electronic product codes). EPCglobal is a joint venture between EAN International and the Uniform Code Council (UCC), which currently have more than one million members in more than 100 countries. EAN.UCC standardises bar codes, EDI transactions sets and XML schemas for business supply chains. The EPCglobal Network was developed by the Auto-ID Center, an academic research project based at MIT.
Companies that want to use the system will have to subscribe to EPCglobal. Henri Barthel, general manager for the EPC system at EAN International in Brussels, says the system is open and non-profit, "but like anyone, we also need financial resources to work, so there is a subscription. That's not different from what we have done in the bar code world for the past 35 years."
But two things are different. First, suppliers will not have to tell their partners what their numbers mean, or put them in a catalogue such as UCCnet. Software will be able to handle all that over the network. Second, the numbering system has been extended to provide the capacity to track individual products, not just pallets. Brendsel says there is the capacity to number every grain of sand on the planet.
Of course, the RFID tag only carries the number, so it is up to the company what information it keeps on its computers, and the level of access it provides. However, most of it is likely to be boringly logistical.
"It's about the movement of products from the factory to the warehouse to the store," says Barthel. "That's typically the application we have in mind. The idea is not for consumers to use a Google or Yahoo to find information about products. From a technical point of view, that would be possible, but a lot of the information would be confidential to the manufacturers and suppliers."
Brendsel says: "The system is being driven by the needs of manufacturers and retailers, and I haven't heard anybody talking about it being open to public use, but there could be a case for wider access in certain areas, such as public safety information."
In any case, the cost will prevent manufacturers from trying to track more than a small minority of products at an individual level. RFID tags may be cheap - from 30c to $50 each, depending on capabilities - but they are vastly more expensive than bar codes. The cost soon mounts up if you buy them by the million. RFID readers are also expensive, as are the giant databases needed to store and search the resulting data. Having a unique tag implies having separate data for each item, but there's not much point in keeping millions of almost identical records about identical tins of beans.
None the less, everyone recognises that the system will become much more widely used as RFID production volumes increase and costs come down.
Says Brendsel: "It's too early to speculate, but it's like the internet circa 1993, so we're definitely taking the long-term view. The nice thing here is that you have two very significant catalysts - Wal-Mart [the supermarket chain] and the US Department of Defense - who are mandating it to their suppliers. It's going to be big."
Links
EPCglobal FAQ
www.epcglobalinc.com/about/faqs.html
VeriSign EPC Network Services
http://www.verisign.com/nds/directory/epc/index.html?sl=080201&waid=Y10611000071081100
RFID Journal FAQ
www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/207
