h facilitate the transac- tions. These associated networks provide value to a network of consumers who pay for these services. As the platform has demonstrated its value, the size of the associated net- works has grown, reinforcing the original value proposition. This is illustrated in Figure 12.14. 5 The RFID tag photograph is reproduced from [17]. No machine-readable author provided. Maschinenjunge assumed (based on copyright claims). GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0. Personal Wireless Communications Systems Antenna Reader Transponder Figure 12.13 RFID operation FeliCa platform Manufacturers Merchants Banks Subscribers Figure 12.14 A typical NFC network-mediated platform Case Study 12.2: FeliCa The history of integrated circuit cards (IC cards, later called smart cards), a forerunner to RFID systems, dates back to the late 1980s when the cards were pro- duced by a number of Japanese manufacturers led by Sony under the product name FeliCa. These cards were originally intended for automatic ticketing sys- Suica tems in public transport and employee ID systems. A number of systems were rolled out in Hong Kong and Singapore before a large roll- out by the East Japan Railway (JR East) company under the brand name of Suica (pic- tured)6 in November 2001. These were read-write cards and could be charged up to 10 000 yen, which could then be used to pay for train usage and JR East soon equipped platform kiosks and vending machines with Suica readers to allow micropayment and further enhance the card's value. Soon other merchants such as convenience stores installed readers, and other railway companies introduced similar cards. The convenience 6 Source: East Japan Railway. Broadband Telecommunications Technologies and Management of the transport card as well as the popularity of its micropayment function attracted many customers and a large market share in a short time. The success of the smart card platform coincided with the growth of mobile telephony and the Japanese operator Docomo's i-mod