Automatic Wireless Lan and cellular log on
O2 has installed a SIM authentication platform from Tatara Systems that will enable its business users to log on automatically to a WLAN hotspot as well as the cellular network, using the mobile SIM in either their PDA or data card.
Colin Forsey, O2’s senior product manager for enterprise networks, said that at the moment O2 operates an IVR system for users logging on to its WLAN hotspots, with users receiving a phone call to check their accreditation.
O2 offers users access through hotspots from service provider The Cloud, and others. Forsey said the decision to go with the platform from Tatara systems was because “they could offer us the client as well as the machine at the back end, and they were capable of the integration with us and with The Cloud.”
Tartara is developing a look-alike user interface to O2’s Connection Manager (OCM) for the XDA, and by April will have a stand alone client available for O2’s 25,000 OCM users, Forsey told Mobile Europe.
“Users will carry on as they are in the laptop, then another client on board wil integrate into the OCM,” he said.
Asked why O2 didn’t choose a platform from one of its SIM card vendors, Forsey said, “EAP-SIM solutions and so on offer a lot of functionality but nine times out of ten you don’t need all the bells and whistles. Tartara were felxible enough tobe able to modify the service to meet quickly the needs of the partnership between us, The Cloud and themselves, making sure the three sets of boxes are all able to talk to each other.”
In time, Forsey said he could see the client moving into the handset space, using public Wireless Lan access for the downloading of content, and the provision of location aware services.