TeliaSonera demonstrates using SIM cards for a safer method of Wi-Fi roaming across wISP networks at the 3GSM World Congress this week: TeliaSonera now has nearly 4,000 hotspots--mostly in Europe--that its users can roam to. It's now testing using the SIM card found in GSM phones that uniquely identifies a user's billing account to handle authentication across wireless ISP networks.
In a press release, the company said it successfully tested SIM-based roaming between Finnish and Swedish networks that it operates. In that test, the two networks have different wireless LAN equipment and back-end systems.
The hope is that by relying on a SIM for authentication, cell operators and others can tie together more services with less friction across all data and telephone services. TeliaSonera's authentication uses 802.1X and EAP-SIM. The GSM Association should adopt this method as a standard that it recommends to its members.