HID reports results of NFC pilot at Arizona State University

The access control specialist’s NFC campus pilot is now complete, all participants are reporting positive results and a video showing the system in action has been produced.

HID Global’s NFC pilot at Arizona State University, the first public trial of NFC mobile keys to take place on a college campus, has now been completed and a video showing the service in action has been produced:

All the parties involved in the project, including Arizona State, phone provider RIM, carrier Verizon Wireless and HID Global are reporting positive results from the trial.

“The initial feedback we received mid-way through the pilot in September was confirmed through its completion, cementing our vision of a future where virtual identities can be created for each registering student and then delivered to them via a mobile application,” says Arizona State‘s Laura Ploughe. “This pilot proved the viability of the NFC-based mobile access model using secure portable credentials and the next generation of advanced access control systems, and also confirmed the high value that staff and students place on using their phones for more and more applications, including opening doors throughout the campus.”

“From a pilot perspective, it was clear that the students loved it, and they want it,” adds Humphrey Chen, executive director, new technologies and new market development at Verizon Wireless. “The pilot gave us a clear indication that people would use their smartphones to unlock their dorm room doors, and this technology can be used for office doors and home doors, too.”

“With the brand new BlackBerry Bold and the brand new BlackBerry Curve, we’ve now got NFC embedded right into the products,” says Andrew Bocking, vice president of handheld software product management at RIM. “We’re very excited about the entire NFC ecosystem, and access control and logical access are very important parts of that. As we look forward to the future, mobile devices really become an extension of your identity, and this is just another example of how you can now use that identity to access things with your BlackBerry device.”

“The completion of this pilot is an important step toward global deployment of mobile access control technology beyond cashless payment applications,” adds Debra Spitler, HID Global‘s vice president of mobile access solutions. “The pilot results have clearly demonstrated the benefits of opening doors using digital credentials that have been securely embedded into NFC smartphones. We are very pleased with the results.”

“With NFC and the other solutions that we offer as the Assa Abloy Group, we see a number of opportunities including the ability to deliver a variety of different solutions depending on the kind of door that you would like to secure,” says Thanasis Molokotos, president and CEO Americas for Assa Abloy, HID Global’s parent company. “Now that NFC has been added to the solution spectrum, we can go a little deeper and offer access control solutions for different budgets, from $300 to $3000, depending on the kind of door.”

In initial feedback, collated in September, some 80% of ASU participants reported that using a smartphone to unlock a door was just as convenient as using their campus ID card. Nearly 90% said they would like to use their smartphone to open all doors on campus. And, while the pilot was focused on physical access, nearly all participants also expressed an interest in using their NFC phone for other campus applications including access to the student recreation center, as well as transit fare payment and meal, ticket and merchandise purchases.

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