Telekom Austria Launches Managed RFID Services

Once the systems are up and running, Telekom Austria's clients will be able to see a visualization of the monitored processes via a Web platform or, possibly, as part of the their internal computing systems.

When implementing the RFID applications, Telekom Austria will choose the best type of tag (active or passive) and the best types of interrogators for each application, from a variety of tag and reader manufacturers. The Austrian operator is presently negotiating for the passive single-use tags it intends to use for the Austrian fashion maker. As a member of EPCglobal, Fritz says, Telekom Austria plans to choose tags compliant with the EPC standard as often as possible.

According to Fritz, his company began designing the solution three years ago in partnership with RF-iT Solutions, a software maker headquartered in Graz, Austria, and later with Munich-based textile industry consultants Gesellschaft für Consulting und Synergie (GCS). GCS helped Telekom Austria understand how to market its services for the fashion industry. The offering is based on RF-iT's You-R OPEN version 3.1 middleware, which is specialized to work within the fashion and automotive industries. The You-R OPEN software platform, says Dominik Berger, managing director of RF-iT, enables a new business model by creating a new source of revenue for Telekom Austria.

The move by Telekom Austria to enter the RFID business comes as fixed-line telecommunications operators across Europe are struggling to find new revenue sources. The growth of wireless networks and extreme price pressure, ever since the markets were deregulated more than a decade ago, have put incumbent and other fixed-line operators in a bind. RFID applications are a new service operators can offer, which fit wells with the traditional expertise areas of telecommunications operators: namely, running data networks and managing partners.

"We are supporting their strategy to bring in new business," Berger says, "and they have a lot of key strategic ingredients for running the managed-service model." He adds that if the managed-service model catches on, it could potentially drive wide-scale RFID adoption.