Reltronics Technologies

There is no global public body that governs the frequencies used for RFID. As an accepted paradigm, countries world wide predetermine their standards individually. The primary bodies governing the frequency allocation for RFID are:

USA: FCC (Federal Communications Commission)
Canada: DOC (Department of Communication)
Europe: ERO, CEPT, ETSI, and national administrations (note that the national administrations must ratify the usage of a specific frequency before it can be used in that country)
Japan: SOUMU (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications)
China: Ministry of Information Industry
South Africa: Icasa
South Korea: Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy
Australia: Australian Communications and Media Authority.
New Zealand: Ministry of Economic Development
Singapore: Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
Brazil: Anatel (Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações)

Low-frequency (LF: 125 – 134.2 kHz and 140 – 148.5 kHz) and high-frequency (HF: 13.56 MHz) RFID tags are globally used without a license. There is no single global standard for Ultra-high-frequency (UHF: 868 MHz-928 MHz) and thus they cannot be used without acquiring a license. In North America, UHF can be used unlicensed for 902 – 928 MHz (±13 MHz from the 915 MHz center frequency), although restrictions exist for transmission power. In Europe, RFID and other low-power radio applications are regulated by ETSI recommendations EN 300 220 and EN 302 208, and ERO recommendation 70 03, permitting RFID operation with slender complex band restrictions from 865–868 MHz. Readers are required to monitor a channel before transmitting ("Listen Before Talk"); this requirement led to certain restrictions on the performance criteria, the resolution of which is a subject of current research. The North American UHF standard is not acknowledged in France as it interferes with its military bands. As far as China and Japan are concerned, there are no regulations pertaining to the use of UHF. Each UHF application in these countries requires a site license, which is to be applied for at the local authorities, and can be revoked. For Australia and New Zealand, 918 – 926 MHz are unlicensed with restrictions only for transmission power.

These frequencies are acknowledged as the ISM bands (Industrial Scientific and Medical bands). There persists a possibility of interference of the return signal of the tag with other radio users

ISO 14223/1 – Radio frequency identification of Animals, advanced transponders – Air interface.
ISO 14443: This is a very popular HF (13.56 MHz) standard, which is being used as the basis of RFID-enabled passports under ICAO 9303.
ISO 15693: This is another well known HF (13.56 MHz) standard , widely used for non-contact smart payment and credit cards.
ISO 18000-7: This is a fairly new UHF (433 MHz) industry standard for all active RFID products, mandated by the U.S. Department of Defense, NATO militaries, and increasingly commercial users of active RFID.
ISO 18185: This is the industry accepted standard for electronic seals or "e-seals" for tracking cargo containers using the 433 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequencies.
EPCglobal – This standardized framework is most likely to undergo International Standardization as per the ISO rules as with all sound standards in the world, unless residing with limited scope, as customs regulations, air-traffic regulations and others. Currently the big distributors and governmental customers are pushing EPC heavily as a standard well accepted in their community, but not yet regarded as for salvation to the rest of the world.

EPCglobal (a joint venture between GS1 and GS1 US) is working on international standards for the use of mostly passive RFID whereas; EPC is used for the identification of many items in the supply chain for companies worldwide.

EPCglobal targets its mission to simplify the Babel of protocols prevalent in the RFID world in the 1990s. Two tag air interfaces (the protocol for exchanging information between a tag and a reader) were defined (but not ratified) by EPCglobal prior to 2003. These protocols, commonly known as Class 0 and Class 1, saw significant commercial implementation in 2002–2005.

In 2004 the Hardware Action Group created a new protocol- the Class 1 Generation 2 interface which addressed a number of issues that existed with Class 0 and Class 1 tags. The EPC Gen2 standard was approved in December 2004, and is likely to outline the backbone of passive RFID tag standards as it advances. This was approved after a contention from Intermec stating that the standard may infringe a number of their RFID related patents. It was determined that the standard itself did not infringe their patents, but it may prove necessary to pay royalties to Intermec if the tag were to be read in a particular manner. The EPC Gen2 standard was adopted with minor revisions as ISO 18000-6C in 2006.

SmartCode offers the lowest cost of Gen2 EPC inlay at a price of 5 cents per piece in volumes of 100 million or more. Nevertheless, further conversion (including additional label stock or encapsulation processing/insertion and freight costs to a given facility or DC) of the inlays into usable RFID labels and the design of current Gen 2 protocol standard will raise the total end-cost, particularly with the added security feature extensions for RFID Supply Chain item-level tagging.

RFID STANDARDS