RFID Journal Staff asked 9 years ago I have heard that it is dead on arrival because a couple of proposed channels overlap with the railroad. Is that true?
—Name withheld
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To answer your question, I reached out to Josef Preishuber-Pflügl, CISC Semiconductor's CTO. Joe is involved with the development of many international RFID standards and is a leading expert on the technology.
Joe says the frequency expansion covers 915 MHz to 921 MHz, not 815 MHz to 821 MHz. He adds that both regulations (CEPT REC 70-03) and a test standard (EN 302 208 V2.1.1) have been published. But national adoption in the 46 CEPT countries "has not happened except a few small countries." (For some background information regarding the European efforts to expand UHF RFID to the 915 to 921 MHz band, see Full Steam Ahead for UHF RFID in Europe.)
"The overlap with railways (918 to 921 MHz) is technically addressed," Joe says. "However, as railways have not yet started to implement their applications (and it is unclear when it will happen), there are no products on the market that could easily be integrated with or connected to RFID readers to mitigate interference. RFID vendors at this time are not willing to develop this from scratch and, therefore, do not support this yet."
Joe adds that for the 915 to 918 MHz part of the band, there is some overlap with military applications in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, which needs to be sorted out. "My personal view," he says, "is that 915 MHz to 921 MHz may be used for certain sites in Europe right now, but readers supporting this for general use will not be available within the next two years. Furthermore, it is important to know that although there is an overlap with the 902 to 928 MHz band used in the United States, the concept is completely different and, therefore, U.S. readers cannot be used."
—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal
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