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Type A vs. Type B, what's the difference?

CampusIDNews Staff   ||   Jul 22, 2003  ||   

From the July Issue of ContactlessNews - The most heated battle in the contactless technology market place has not been between different standards but between competing implementations within a single standard. The two unique implementations of the ISO 14443 standard, Type A and Type B, have fought for projects and profits in the worldwide contactless smart card arena. And like many struggles, sometimes the fight was fair and sometimes not so fair. But advancing technology has changed the contactless marketplace and previous adversaries are aligning to promote the ‘contactless cause'.

Over the years, a significant level of misinformation has surfaced surrounding the two types.  The practical difference between Type A and Type B have been shrinking as each has progressed from infancy to relative maturity in the seven years since the ISO standard was formally established.  While Type A is the clear market leader in terms of units deployed, Type B is gaining share and vendor support at an increasing rate.  Most importantly, the worldwide market seems to be wading through the morass to see the benefits of contactless technology while seeing past the confusion surrounding the Type A vs. B debate.

In the following article, a number of the commonly accepted ideas about these two technologies are examined–with suprising results.

For the full article and much, much more, click HERE.

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