Packaging
Guaranteed Interoperability between Giesecke & Devrients NFC-Enabled SIM Card and Venyons TSM Services
Tuesday 26. August 2008 - Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) and Venyon, two leading companies in Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, have come another crucial step closer to the mass-market launch of NFC services. The successful outcome of interoperability tests between the two companies respective NFC components proves that their solutions can work together seamlessly in NFC ecosystems.
Typical NFC applications, such as mobile payment or ticketing, can be securely stored on and executed from the SIM card in the mobile phone. Trusted Service Manager (TSM) services allow mobile operators and service providers to securely issue their applications and services on NFC-enabled mobile phones via the mobile network (over the air). The successful results of the interoperability tests involving G&Ds NFC-enabled ProxSIM cards and Venyons TSM services confirm that both components comply with the necessary industry standards, such as ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), GlobalPlatform and JavaCard.
Dr Klaus Vedder, head of G&Ds Telecommunications division: “With Venyon’s excellent reputation and vast experience in NFC technology, we can count on a strong partner for the upcoming NFC service launches. The interoperability tests were simply the next logical step in our joint efforts to demonstrate to participating organizations such as mobile network operators and financial institutions that the technology is ready to be deployed.”
“The NFC ecosystem comprises multiple industry verticals, new technologies, applications and services, all targeted to provide added value to consumers. Interoperability is one of the essential cornerstones needed to realize the full potential of NFC-based services. Our cooperation with G&D, a leading provider of SIM card solutions, takes us that important step further towards ensuring that our TSM services are truly interoperable with NFC-enabled multi-application SIM cards”, says Venyon CEO Lauri Pesonen.
G&D and Venyon are currently taking part in several NFC pilot projects around the world. These include the trials launched by Turkcell and Garanti Bank in Turkey and by O2, Barclaycard and Visa in the UK. An important aspect of the wide experience that G&D and Venyon expect to gain from these NFC trials is that of verifying interoperability. After all, the success of NFC depends on the ability of different components of the ecosystem to communicate seamlessly. Indeed, this was the main motivation for testing the security and interoperability of G&Ds ProxSIM card in conjunction with Venyons TSM services.
Near Field Communication is an innovative radio-frequency technology that allows the contactless exchange of data between mobile devices and/or contactless readers over a distance of a few centimeters. As a global provider of high-security application management and provisioning services for NFC-enabled mobile devices, Venyon plays an important role in bringing these services to mobile operators and service providers such as banks and transportation operators. A single SIM card can accommodate several co-existing applications such as payment and ticketing, each of them being independently managed by the issuing service provider. Venyons Trusted Service Platform was developed specifically to provide TSM services that meet the markets requirement for secure and versatile over the air provisioning and management services for multi-application platforms such as ProxSIM.
Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) is one of the forerunners in the development of diverse components for NFC ecosystems such as NFC-enabled SIM cards and the corresponding contactless applications. G&D has introduced its ProxSIM product line for NFC-enabled SIM cards supporting single wire protocol (SWP). Its SWP / host controller interface (HCI) to the NFC controller in the mobile handset enables fast reaction and transaction times for NFC services as well as the usage in battery-off mode.