Skiers and other tourists will be among the first to try out some of the latest mobile phone technology in Italy this season, when a public trial of NFC (near field communication) technology is carried out in the Dolomite ski resorts in north east Italy.

Tourists visiting selected hotels will be issued with NFC-enabled mobile phones and smart cards that can used securely at a number of locations around the resorts. These devices will enable users to get the latest ski and weather reports direct to their mobiles simply by waving them past NFC-enabled posters - and participants will also receive coupons that can be later used at bars, shops and restaurants.

The trials are part of the 'Store Logistics and Payment with NFC' (StoLPaN) project - a pan-European initiative to investigate and develop a multi-application environment which will increase the efficiency of services deployed on NFC-enabled mobile phones.

NFC is a modern approach to data exchange using short range, high frequency wireless communication similar to the Bluetooth technology already found in many mobile devices. Unlike Bluetooth however, NFC requires no initial set up or pairing, making it a much quicker and flexible alternative, and it can be utilised even where one device is not powered by a battery. Purchases made by using NFC systems are expected to reach $75 billion per annum by 2013*, and NFC is expected to be available in at least one fifth of mobile phones by then.

Since October 2007, the Informatics Research Group in Sheffield Hallam's Cultural, Communication and Computing Research Institute (C3RI) has been working in conjunction with a host of partners across Europe as part of the StoLPaN project, which is funded by the European Commission's Framework 6 'Information Society Technologies' programme.

Sheffield Hallam has been supporting the European consortium which, amongst others, includes Motorola, Philips, the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, the La Sapienza University of Rome, Banco Popolare di Vicenza and NXP Semiconductors, by providing functional and architectural specifications, testing, and validating protocol and interfaces for several devices. C3RI is also assisting in the delivery of the trial run of services in Italy in conjunction with Telecom Italia.

The trials are being managed by Ennova Research and their executive vice president Francesco Prato said, 'The trial requires us to bring together different technologies and partners to support our common goal. We expect the service and platform deployed in the Veneto region will be ready for widespread commercial deployment in 2010, coinciding with the integration of NFC into significant numbers of mobile phones.'

Robert Evans, technology transfer manager at Sheffield Hallam, is managing the business side of this project for the University and, according to him, the technology and competencies that have been developed could lead to a number of other applications.

'The potential for this type of technology is huge and we are already in discussion with a number of healthcare providers to identify ways in which it could be used within the provision of health services.'

* Source 'Mobile Payment Markets Contactless NFC 2008-2013', www.juniperresearch.com