Telcos, mobile pushers muck in to trial 'clever' Wi-Fi

Fourteen of the largest telecommunications companies around the world have participated in successful trials of Hotspot 2.0, which made it easier for them to use Wi-Fi. During the trials, users received devices which can automatically attach to Wi-Fi when its available, and present credentials without having to bother the user …

[Jon B]

nice scam..

So telcos can charge you at the cost of 3g network data when you're actually on wi-fi, without you noticing you're being ripped off?

[Martin Saunders]

Ipass have done this for years?

Ipass have been doing this, or something very similar for years. I can login to most major wifi hotspots using my Claranet iPass account. You can use the ipass software, but in the background it uses a username format of IPASS\CLARA\username which makes sure the user credentials are authenticated by Claranet in the end.

It's expensive, quite clunky and not always that reliable, but it exists. IPass have really missed out if they aren't part of this..

[SYNTAX__ERROR]

Skeenkin'...

What'sthatnow?

[ScottME]

What problem is this trying to solve?

I must be misunderstanding something. Personally, I would not want my devices to automatically connect to a random WiFi hotspot that happened to be available.

I actually quite like the control I have by exercising a choice to join an available WiFi network. And all my devices are already perfectly able to remember the necessary sign-on credentials and are already able automatically to (re)connect to networks I've previously chosen.

So I don't see what benefit this "innovation" would offer.

Perhaps it's trying to simplify the business of choosing and presenting credentials for that first time use of a "new" network? In which case, can anyone explain why the new technique is superior to, for example, 802.11x certificate-based authentication?