Personal hotspot 2 connections full#

You turn on your device, credentials are provisioned, network and device identify each other, and automatically join. The WFA has a testing process for the equipment, and if the radios pass, they are labeled as 'Passpoint' certified. First, client radios and access points have to implement the Wi-Fi Alliance's Hotspot 2.0 specification. (Cisco's Lisa Garza, who handles service provider marketing for the company's Mobility Solutions unit, has a high-level overview of the Beijing demonstration.)Д«ut not any Wi-Fi radio can use such services. A Cisco diagram (shown above) outlines the network elements.

Personal hotspot 2 connections full#

By the time a user pulled his smartphone from a pocket, the device already had been authenticated to the Wi-Fi network, with full roaming rights, and securely connected. That's what drew 14 carriers and operators to the Beijing project: when their subscribers walked into the venue with their phones, the phones and access points started an automatic conversation. So far, the 400-plus attendees in Beijing for November's Wi-Fi Global Congress, an industry event focused on carrier-based Wi-Fi services, is the biggest public group to test out the long-standing promises of HotSpot 2.0: automatic Wi-Fi authentication and connection, and seamless roaming between different Wi-Fi hotspot brands, and eventually between Wi-Fi and cellular connections.ДЇor carriers, a reliable, secure, high-capacity Wi-Fi service that's as easy for subscribers to use as cellular means that subscribers can be shifted from overburdened cell networks to higher-capacity Wi-Fi networks.

While the technical details have been sorted out, including a Wi-Fi Alliance equipment certification program, networking companies, carriers, and mobile operators are still haggling over Wi-Fi roaming agreements and puzzling over how, or whether, to make money from it.

BACKGROUND: Hotspot 2.0 promises to redefine the Wi-Fi experienceД«ut don't hold your breath waiting for a HotSpot 2.0 near you, unless you are visiting Boingo's network at O'Hare airport in Chicago or you are a Towerstream user in New York City, the only two, still limited deployments in the U.S.