Adcock, who has spent over 20 years in a high profile FMCG sales and marketing roles with companies including CPC [now BestFoods], Rothmans and Gillette, is "honoured and excited" to be leading an organisation which, despite being just over a year old, now has 400 subscribers and over 100 member organisations worldwide.
He says: "ETSI's approval of the European UHF frequency operating range last October was a big step forward, especially given that the US already has its own frequency range [902-928 MHz] and power levels [4W EIRP]."
Other countries are also "forging ahead encouragingly". Australia, for instance, is establishing its own UHF RFID frequency range, India is in the process of introducing its own frequency regulations, while Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea are all "well down the road". He is "awaiting progress reports" from Japan, while China is making good headway towards its own standards system, which will interoperate with the EPCglobal system.
He adds: "For many the lack of European frequency standards has been the key barrier to full-scale deployment but that obstacle is no longer there. The other remaining hurdle - the lack of a global air interface protocol - has also disappeared following ratification of the UHF Generation 2 standard just before Christmas."
Adcock says the new standard's key benefit is that, for the first time, reader and tag manufacturers will be able to design and manufacture low cost hardware to one common operating protocol.
