May 23, 2006AT&T has begun customer trials of a new managed RFID service. The network and managed services provider is teaming with Intel, BEA Systems and Symbol Technologies to offer an end-to-end hosted RFID service for the manufacturing, retailing, government-services and health-care sectors. The offering is intended to help businesses and agencies deploy and scale their systems easily and affordably.
The new AT&T service integrates with those the company already provides, such as network integration and consulting, IP transport, hosting, storage, managed applications and security. In September, AT&T had announced its intention to launch such an offering (see AT&T Plans Managed RFID Services).
Several customers are already using the service in RFID trials expected to end in mid 2006. The trials involve AT&T's IP network, Internet data centers and managed services expertise, as well as AT&T's integrated Global Enterprise Management System (iGEMS), the company's network-management platform.
AT&T is offering a five-prong set of services, says Ebrahim Keshavarz, vice president of the firm's New Services Development division. These include professional services, managed LAN and wireless LAN services, a service that enables the transaction from the customer to the EPCglobal Network, a hosted EPCglobal database and a warehouse management solution.
"This is a very natural fit for us," says Keshavarz. "Once the clients know they want RFID, we are already in the middle of the solution." AT&T, he explains, already provides transmission of data. "And in many cases," he adds, "we are managing the LAN."
AT&T also has a large existing technical support staff for its customers, wherever they may be, including work centers around the world, according to Paul DiGiacomo, director of AT&T Sensor Network Services. Those work centers can provide an RFID customer with the services they need for a hosted RFID solution.
Although RFID usage is still slow to take hold in many markets, Keshavarz reports, AT&T is preparing for the technology's growth and is well poised to provide an affordable and consistent service to its RFID customers.
In addition, BEA is providing its WebLogic RFID Edge Server, a piece of middleware that will link customers with AT&T's network. The WebLogic RFID Edge Server performs data scrubbing and integrates with an ERP system from SAP or Oracle. Symbol Technologies is providing the fixed and mobile UHF interrogators (readers).
"We think that with these three key partners, we have a pretty compelling solution," Keshavarz says.
The trials will last 90 to 120 days and are being undertaken by a variety of companies. In one case, says DiGiacomo, a Fortune 500 international manufacturer is piloting a large-scale standard and repeatable approach using Gen 2 tags that send data to the hosted AT&T RFID system. The company, which he did not name, has already completed several small RFID pilots and is looking for one large hosted solution for its worldwide sites.
Another company, new to RFID, is seeking to use the technology to track its inventory of electrical devices for offices, according to DiGiacomo. In a second phase, the company hopes to integrate the system with GPS and cellular data communication devices to track which driver is in a particular van, what kinds of equipment are in his truck and where he is, so that the correct driver can be sent to the proper service call.
AT&T, which became a member of EPCglobal US in August 2005, intends to provide a standards-based approach to its RFID solution. This will remove variances, lower costs and increase quality, Keshavarz explains. "This is contrasted with the custom systems integration business—where every process and project might be slightly different and the solution is built for an audience of one—and makes it more expensive, harder to predict the quality ahead of time and scales only with additional human labor," he says.
