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WLAN Event: Telcos turn their eye to hot spots
[MacUser] 16:07

At today’s WLAN Event in London, Ericsson has demonstrated a laptop wirelessly accessing the Internet through a hot-spot, but authenticated over a GSM mobile network using a standard SIM card.
Mobile operators will now have the chance to grab their bit of gold from hot-spots, with Ericsson demonstrating how GSM networks can authenticate WLAN sessions via a standard SIM card.

User would enjoy a more attractive and familiar billing system – being charged by the minute with the amount turning up on your phone bill – than the nominal ï5 per 24-hour period, proposed by Toshiba.

Mobile operators would also steal a march on the competition in that they have already sorted out accepted roaming agreements.

Of course, Ericsson has an interest in all this – namely, all the operators upgrading their networks with its WLAN Authentication Server.

Matt Whipp