IEEE LANMAN 2007 Panel on "RFID Infrastructure"
It has been predicted that the RFID Readers will become the most numerous type of network connected device on the planet in the next 10 to 15 years. Estimates of 300 million readers by 2014 have been thrown around. So these RFID readers must be all state-of-the-art network citizens with proven, standards-based interoperability and high levels of management and operational reliability .... Ah, not quite, at least not yet.
In 2005, the passive UHF RFID air-protocol (called Class 1 Generation 2) (see http://www.epcglobalinc.org/standards/) was standardized. This has allowed manufacturers worldwide to tag their product shipments, and transportation, logistics, and retail RFID users to read those tags and manage inventory far more efficiently. Outside of the retail industry, RFID is quietly becoming ubiquitous and being applied in a wide range of vertical markets and industries, including pharmaceuticals, health care delivery, airlines, manufacturing, food processing, and so on.
Now that the end-user value proposition of RFID is being realized and understood, the focus for many RFID end-users and solution providers has been on developing standards for local and wide area network connectivity to facilitate large-scale deployment of RFID readers. These include interfaces for provisioning and management of the readers, the data and control interface for these readers. Likewise, there is a worldwide initiative to harmonize RFID-related regulations to ensure that RFID systems can deployed, and RFID tags read, in any regulatory jurisdiction on the planet.
On the technology front, RFID tags are creeping closer to the nickel-per-tag tipping point; and silicon vendors, including Intel Corp., have come out with integrated RFID reader chips which will further accelerate the market growth of both standalone RFID reader devices and embedded reader functions in a wide range of other types of devices. So, in summary, there are new standards activities and silicon development activities that are about to make this vision of millions of readers feasible. Needless to say, the area of RFID infrastructure is very new, and largely unexamined and underappreciated. This panel aims to shed light and spur discussion on the range of challenges and opportunities present in what many expect to be an exponential build-out of this important new technology.
Panel participants:
David Husak (moderator) (Reva Systems, USA)
Art Howarth (Cisco Systems, USA)
Ajay Malik (Motorola, USA)
Craig W. Thompson (University of Arkansas, USA)
Margaret Wassermann (Thingmagic, USA)
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IEEE LANMAN 2007 Panel on "Impact of Video Distribution on the MAN and LAN Architectures"
This panel will examine the infrastructure evolution we are now experiencing to use IP for all communications to the consumer. IPTv and VoIP are becoming common. The integration of these technologies with data communications presents interesting opportunities to enrich the consumer's experience, as well as modify the competitive landscape for carriers.
Along with this come challenges. The metro area network, including the last-mile to the home and the in-home communication network will see dramatic increases in demand. Different approaches, including VDSL, Fiber-PON, and Broadband Wireless are all being used and enhanced to meet this increased bandwidth.
This panel will examine the architectures, challenges, technology and cost impact as a result of this evolution.
Panel participants:
Charles Kalmanek (moderator) (Internet & Network Systems Research V.P., AT&T Labs, USA)
Chris Chase (AT&T Labs Austin, USA)
Albert Greenberg (Microsoft Research, USA)
Ron Haberman (Alcatel-Lucent, USA)
Mod Marathe (Cisco Systems, USA)
Dipankar Raychaudhuri (Director, WINLAB, Rutgers University, USA)
Vik Saksena (Comcast, USA)
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