This part of ISO/IEC 18000 specifies the air interface for radio frequency identification (RFID) devices operating in the 860 MHz to 930 MHz Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band used in item management applications. This part of ISO/IEC 18000 is intended to allow for compatibility and to encourage inter-operability of products for the growing RFID market in the international marketplace. 

This document defines the forward and return link parameters for technical attributes including, but not limited to, operating frequency, operating channel accuracy, occupied channel bandwidth, maximum effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP), spurious emissions, modulation, duty cycle, data coding, bit rate, bit rate accuracy, bit transmission order, and, where appropriate, operating channels, frequency hop rate, hop sequence, spreading sequence and chip rate. It further defines the communications protocol used in the air interface.

This part of ISO/IEC 18000, together with ISO/IEC 18000-61, ISO/IEC 18000-62, ISO/IEC 18000-63 and ISO/IEC 18000- 64 specifies the physical and logical requirements for a passive-backscatter, Interrogator-Talks-First (ITF) or tag-only-talks-after-listening (TOTAL) RFID system.

This part of ISO/IEC 18000 contains one mode with four types. The detailed technical differences between the four types are shown in the associated parameter tables.

This part of ISO/IEC 18000, together with ISO/IEC 18000-61, ISO/IEC 18000-62, ISO/IEC 18000-63 and ISO/IEC 18000- 64 specifies for 860-930 MHz

—     physical interactions (the signalling layer of the communication link) between interrogators and tags,

—     interrogator and tag operating procedures and commands,

—     the collision arbitration scheme used to identify a specific tag in a multiple-tag environment.