Inevitably, during the lifetime of a technology — especially one that is emerging, comparisons to more well-established, standardized technologies will occur. Such comparisons took place for Bluetooth, WiMAX and WLAN. Now, the attention has turned to RFID. What areas of the industry will it play in? How is it different from other established technologies? And, will it compete with existing technologies for the same market share? This latter question has been the topic of much discussion of late.

The question at hand is will Wi-Fi compete with RFID for dominance in the location-based services (LBS) market. We already know, for example, that Wi-Fi and active RFID are competitors for the healthcare asset management industry. Market research firm ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) established that fact last year. According to the company, less than 5% of hospitals use tracking systems to stay on top of their inventory, and Wi-Fi and RFID companies feel they can accommodate the gap. After all, there is so much inventory in state-of-the-art hospitals that paper systems can't reliably track assets without a few slipping through the cracks. Use of Wi-Fi or RFID, therefore, could help prevent over-inventory and under-utilization of assets and allow hospitals to know exactly where their equipment is kept.

Today, Wi-Fi and RFID have a presence in the healthcare asset industry. While Wi-Fi systems are familiar to hospitals for other uses, these networks would need to greatly expand to accommodate an asset-tracking capacity. In contrast, RFID has been used for some time for asset-tracking solutions and, therefore, has the technology maturity and ability to address the needs of the healthcare industry.

But what about the LBS market, for example, real-time location services (RTLS) for asset management, security and work-in-progress tracking? Here too, RFID has a history of demonstrated ability and market dominance, yet it also has a key disadvantage — the fact that it is today populated with proprietary solutions, including expensive readers. This is where Wi-Fi comes in. Its large installed base of equipment makes it cost effective and as a result has opened up new opportunities. Wi-Fi-based RTLS have recently become just such an opportunity, with RTLS functions being handled by specialized software.

Of course, in the LBS market, Wi-Fi faces its own set of disadvantages. According to ABI Research, it is somewhat less accurate, especially outdoors. It is also less secure and can require the addition of up to 20% more Wi-Fi access points to a network. But, if a company already has a Wi-Fi network in place, then it may make sense to implement it for LBS applications; especially given that Wi-Fi is cost effective, needs no extra cabling and is standards-based.

The growth of Wi-Fi-based RTLS may force RTLS based on RFID to diminish, but that does not foretell the technology's demise as it is already entrenched in this space. Besides which, RFID is emerging in other key markets traditionally dominated by technologies like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The mobile market is a prime example where RFID solutions are being looked at for use in mobile and handheld devices.

In one example, researchers at the University of Tokyo are developing a positioning system using RFID location markers and mobile devices as part of a three-year project called RFID-based Positioning Systems for Enhancing Safety and Sense of Security. The system uses data captured from RFID location markers, sensors and nearby peer devices so that pedestrians' mobile devices can accurately compute their positions. Each device uses its position and time as its spatio-temporal address (STA) — that is, its network address — thereby preventing privacy-violating location tracking. The devices can then use the STAs to gather real-time urban environmental information such as noise level and CO₂ density.

Time will tell which technology will take the dominant role. In the meantime, as the saying goes: “All's fair in love and war!”