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Innovative NFC access control solution from Telcred opens the doors to EIT ICT Labs Stockholm Co-location Centre

An access control solution using Near Field Communication (NFC) and cloud-based technology is tested by staff, students and researchers in the EIT ICT Labs Co-location Centre in Stockholm.

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As of June 2012, the startup company Telcred provides a service where those who want to enter the Co-location Centre are able to receive a digital ticket straight to their phone, granting access to the facilities for a predefined time and area. This cutting edge solution provides a flexible solution for the management of the regular and ad hoc flow of visitors.

Gunnar Landgren, Node Director EIT ICT Labs Stockholm: “It is a great opportunity to expose students, researchers and visitors to one of the most exciting new mobile technologies, NFC, at our Co-location Centre. At the same time it facilitates our daily activities with many visiting researchers and students from other countries staying for shorter or longer periods of time and requiring various types of access”.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a technology that enables intuitive use of proximity services such as payments and access to facilities using a contactless smart card or mobile phones. NFC only allows communication between two units to take place when they are within a few centimeters distance or when tapped against each other. It does not require any previous pairing of devices.

The access control system works with both contactless smart cards and NFC phones and uses the Ericsson cloud based Trusted Service Manager (TSM). The TSM facilitates remote distribution and management of applications which reside on a so called secure element in the phone. In Telcred’s solution, the TSM is used for both application management and to send updated “tickets”, which contain the users’ access rights, to the application.

Carlo Pompili, CEO Telcred, is enthusiastic about the pilot and the opportunity to both showcase and test the product: “With our background as a research project at SICS, Swedish Institute of Computer Science, a core partner of EIT ICT Labs, we are delighted to showcase our product to students and researchers in the environment where it all started a few years ago. It is also a great place for us to evaluate our system since a lot of people in different user categories need access to the premises and will put our solution through its paces.”

"We have been fortunate to be part of the Entrepreneurial Support System offered here in Kista. For one and a half year we have been a STING company which is very valuable – both the Business Angel Network providing access to capital and the Business Coaching providing great personal contacts. It is also a quality stamp when we are in contact with governmental bodies and other potential clients. Being part of the EIT ICT Labs startup selection we also have an advantage on the international market.”

Watch a video clip of a demonstration of the access control system here:

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Telcred develops and markets a new type of physical access control system based on NFC. The most distinguishing feature is that lock controllers can be offline, and still cope with frequent changes in users and access rights. The solution provides strong security and works with both NFC phones and contactless smart cards.