Interesting reading. Per my previous posts on how could they possibly track all of the animals that were chipped, they are telling you how they will do it.
http://www.telecommagazine.com/newsg...?HH_ID=AR_2085
AT&T Expands RFID Work
Trialing ‘End-to-End’ Integrated Networking Service
by Jim Barthold
Tues, May 23. 2006
AT&T, working with partners Intel, BEA Systems and Symbol Technologies, along with subsidiary Sterling Commerce, has accelerated its effort to deliver end-to-end network transactions that start with the very localized interaction between an Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) reader and device and then spread out into the wider network.
RFID uses very low power wireless transactions, typically in the 1 milliwatt range, to read information on tags generally place on retail items or items being warehoused or shipped.
“As you do more of these in multiple locations or even within a warehouse, there are a lot of transactions that become a network; the readers transmitting back to the edge service device either through cellular, Wi-Fi or wireline,” said Ebrahim Keshavarz, vice president, new services development at AT&T. “Then you have the data going from there back to some centralized data repository.”
In essence, what began as a localized transaction has become a network of different technologies tracking a device – eventually on a global scale. Making matters more complex, enterprise customers generally do not place technical staff in places where they use RFID readers so there’s a need for some oversight of those devices.
“The RFID transactions are being collected in a warehouse, distribution center or retail store, sent out over a network and then processed in a data center, so it’s important for the network provider to be involved so this traffic doesn’t impact voice or video real-time transmissions,” said Paul DiGiacomo, director of AT&T sensor network services.
AT&T, Keshavarz said, has implemented a five-pronged approach to RFID and the wider networks that span out from the readers. It offers professional services to access, plan and deploy the RFID environment; a managed service environment, including managing the RFID readers through an edge device and performing firmware upgrades when needed; delivering secure data transport; hosting a database for the collected information; and, through Sterling Commerce, offering an RFID-enabled warehouse system to data management of multiple distribution clients and warehouses.
“AT&T sees a need for an integrated service that can help customers take an end-to-end view of RFID transactions,” he said. “We think for AT&T long term, tracking any kind of device across multiple environments is going to take multiple types of access, whether it’s Wi-Fi, reading the tag through the reader, cellular … up to and including satellite. There’s a big place for a network player like AT&T.”
AT&T, with its partners, is conducting customer trials that should be completed in the next several months. The next step, Keshavarz said, would be to expand the offering to track items on a global basis.
“The important thing from our perspective is not so much the tag to reader, but from the reader to database and how you track that item as it moves around. There are plenty of companies solving the problem of the tag to the reader; not as many looking at it from a network-centric perspective.”
