AT&T is rolling out a fully managed service that supports RFID from end to end by joining a handful of vendors.

The company says it is working closely with Intel, BEA Systems and Symbol Technologies to deliver parts of its new RFID service, which was introduced last September.

There are five elements to the service, says Ebrahim Keshavarz, vice president of new services deployment at the carrier:

The carrier is supporting all elements except management of the RFID reader edge software and the hosted EPC Global Database. These will be deployed when testing concludes, Keshavarz says. The EPC global database is the industry-standard approach to hosting RFID data for customers, he says.

The carrier is trying to put together a best-of-breed RFID environment for customers from readers to databases stored at AT&T managed data centers, Keshavarz says. "We're not getting into the business of manufacturing tags or readers, but providing an integrated managed service to our worldwide network."

One industry analyst sees promise in the service.

"One of the big problems with RFID to date is the lack of integration among the vendors and carriers required to leverage the technology to its fullest extent," says Robin Gareiss, executive vice president and senior founding partner at Nemertes Research. "What's good about AT&T's move is that it's taking a leadership position with RFID by pulling together the pieces required to make the technology successful."

AT&T is partnering with Intel on two fronts. Intel's Solution Services is working hand in hand with AT&T's professional services group to provide RFID network assessment and deployment architecture to customers. The companies are co-developing repeatable architectures for RFID device management and administration.