Standards

RFID | Wireless | Mobility

With so much trade being conducted globally, standards and regulations are important to ensure safety and the interoperability of tags and readers across national boundaries and between trading partners. A common misunderstanding is that RFID is regulated by one trade body – however it is in fact influenced by a number of official bodies for different aspects:

Frequencies, power levels and operating cycles are regulated in Europe by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute ( ETSI ).

Protocols for communication between tags and readers are proposed by a number bodies and equipment manufacturers. The two most prominent organisations for setting standards are the International Standards Organisation (ISO) and EPCglobal.

EPCglobal is leading the development of industry-driven standards for the Electronic Product Code (EPC) to support the use of RFID in supply chain applications. This is to ensure that data created in one place can be read and interpreted anywhere in the global supply chain. EPC Global is part of GS1 which also manages the UCC-EAN system responsible for standardising barcodes, so they are well placed to develop, manage, promote and deploy the EPC standard.

 

RFID Technology | Standards | Business Benefits