Smartcards

Contact smartcard

In a contact-type smart card, the chip can be recognised by an area of gold-plated contacts about 1 cm close to the short side of the card. The cards do not contain a battery; power is supplied by the card reader.

The ISO/IEC 7816 series of standards define:

• the physical shape of the smart card
• the positions and shapes of its electrical connectors
• the communications protocols and power voltages to be applied
• the functionality
• the format of the commands sent to the card and returned by the card

Contactless smartcard

A second type is the non-contact type called contactless smart card, where the chip communicates with the card reader through wireless self-powered induction technology (106-848 kbit/s).

The standards for the contactless protocol for smart cards are ISO/IEC 14443 (type A and B) from the year 2001, which allows communication distances up to 10 cm. There have been proposals for ISO 14443 type C, D, E and F that have yet to be accepted by the ISO standards committee. An alternative standard for contactless smartcard is ISO 15693, which allows communication distances up to 50 cm.

An example of a widely used contactless smartcard is Hong Kong's Octopus card, which predates the ISO/IEC 14443 standard. For use on public transportation, Malaysia introduced the Touch 'n Go smartcard in 1997, Paris introduced the Calypso card in October 2001, JR East introduced the Suica Card for the Tokyo area in November 2001, and London introduced the Oyster card in January 2004. In 2002, the Chicago Transit Authority introduced the Chicago Card. Taipei also has smartcard system called EasyCard from Taipei Smart Card Corporation. Boston plans to introduce the Charlie Card in 2006. Melbourne plans to have a statewide contactless-smartcard based ticketing system installed by 2007.

A related contactless technology is RFID (radio frequency identification) that in certain cases can be used for similar applications to contactless smartcard such as for electronic toll collection. RFID generally do not include writeable memory or microcontroller processing capability as contactless smartcard do.

There are dual-interface cards that implement contactless and contact interfaces on a single card with some shared storage and processing. An example is Malaysia's multi application smartcard identification called MyKad that uses both contact Proton and contactless Mifare (ISO 14443A) chips.

Telephone Card

A telephone card, or phone card for short, is a small card, usually resembling a credit card, used to pay for telephone services. The exact system for payment, and the way in which the card is used to place a phone call, depend on the overall telecommunication system. But in general a phone card is purchased with a specific balance, from which the cost of calls made is deducted. Phone cards are disposable; when the balance is exhausted, you buy a new card, rather than having the old one re-filled.

The French payphones were the first large size deployment of smart cards: instead of change, users would insert a simple pre-paid smart card from which units would be deducted during the connection.

In many areas, most public payphones are card-operated, with the card inserted into a slot to be read like a credit card (technically more like a debit card, since the charges are deducted from an existing balance). Other phone cards come with a code printed on the card, which the user enters in order to place a call when payment is required. This may be done either from a public telephone, or on a personal phone to access long-distance and other services.

Telecom companies have also taken advantage of phone cards to place advertising on the card, or to feature celebrity portraits, artwork, or attractive photography to increase the appeal of the cards to consumers. This practice, combined with the disposability of the cards (encouraging individuals to purchase multiple cards), has led some people to start collecting phone cards as a hobby.