Issue #139 | Mar. 28, 2008 | by Jeff Schaengold

When we wrote about 700 MHz for RFID last October, the FCC spectrum auction had not taken place. Last week the FCC finalized the majority of the spectrum auction for a windfall of $19 billion paid to the government, with one block reserve not met.

The largest bidder is Verizon for C Block, various B blocks and a significant number of A blocks. The two current largest holders of 700 MHz licenses are AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Within the 700 MHz spectrum, it is mandated that a portion of the spectrum is basically public domain use, like the internet.

Originally, because 900 MHz was the only open spectrum for RF, UHF RFID defaulted to the 900 MHz – not because of optimal performance, but because of availability. 700 MHz can quadruple the read range for RFID UHF, passive and active.

For any of us that subscribe to mobile text messaging devices RIM's Blackberry and PALM, you no doubt have experienced that static sound on your TV or your PC audio every time the device is handshaking. The same concern would need to be resolved for the 700MHz spectrum for digital TV signals and wireless microphones. Once these elements are resolved, the 700MHz spectrum will open up like a land rush claim in Oklahoma over 100 years ago.

In the next five years, 700MHz will take RFID from passive labels on cartons and active tags in automotive assembly, to a federated visibility architecture where as long as you know the ID, you can locate and associate the ID anywhere and anytime. 900 MHz will not meet the evolving requirements of low cost, high performance, devices.

With 700MHz for RFID, it will be just as easy to locate an ocean container at a port as does to find your car keys. Locate a child as easily as finding your car at the shopping mall parking lot. Authenticate a prescription drug in a warehouse, a drug store and even the medicine cabinet. With 700 MHz you can identify a bag of spinach in a case of bags in a trailer of cases, without the need for dock door portals or very expensive automation hardware.

A serious paradigm shift
700 MHz will replace 802.11. 700 MHz will replace WiMax. 700 MHz will replace cell phones. 700 MHz will replace most of the current 900 MHz applications. Have you noticed cell phone carriers are slowly moving away from pure cell phone, to a combination Wi-Fi, VOIP and cell phone?

Why will cell phone be replaced with 700 MHz? Partially because it's much cheaper to allow customers to use Wi-Fi on their cell phones than it is to build infrastructure that will be replaced. With Cell phone you need a cell tower almost every mile. You need a huge infrastructure in cities, and hills, because the 900Mhz can't travel through buildings very well or through hills.

700 MHz can travel through glass, steel, concrete and sheetrock. Plus the distance is closer to 50 miles between towers, than a mile or two. This means that with towers spaced 50 miles apart and steel infrastructures are less of a hindrance, from Maine to San Diego mobility devices will be connected. That means the phone companies can reduce their infrastructure cost by 90%.

When 900 MHz becomes the Betamax of RFID
Yes, it means that 900 MHz will become the Beta of VHS and the HD of DVD. It is not a choice. It's inevitable. The reason that 700 MHz will replace 900MHz for RFID UHF is that it is so much more flexible. If you include the fact that cell phones will be replaced by the new spectrum as well as Wi-Fi, that means that RFID will become just a device component of the "Internet of Stuff" instead of some 40-year-old emerging technology.

Just like Gen 2 will soon evolve to Gen 3, and HF will be included in EPC Global standards, so will 700 MHz. In the scheme of all things in technology the amount of development capital invested in RFID is equal to a flea on an elephant's butt.

Behind the FCC, VZW and ATT is Motorola, the company best positioned to address the infrastructure needs of the 700 MHz spectrum. Especially since Motorola announced this week that it is spinning off it's cell phone handset business. Google or Microsoft will take the lead at promoting the 700 MHz, Motorola will lead the infrastructure hardware, and Oracle will lead the framework.

Jeff Schaengold has extensive experience in the development of RFID in heath sciences, serialization, automation, supply chain, and packaging.

NEXT WEEK: How 700 MHz will power the Internet of Things.