Various aspects are described herein in connection with a method and/or apparatus of near-field communication (NFC). For example, various methods and apparatuses include an NFC controller receiving a message from a remote NFC device specifying a radio frequency (RF) technology for communication. The methods and apparatuses also include the NFC controller determining whether the specified RF technology matches a preferred RF technology for an application. The methods and apparatuses also include the NFC controller establishing NFC communications with the remote NFC device only when the specified RF technology matches the preferred RF technology of the application, wherein the NFC communications are established using the established RF technology. In an aspect, the methods and apparatuses include the NFC controller performing a card emulation operation, such as host-based card emulation (HCE).