Gates launches Wi-Fi provisioning at ITU

Bill Gates will use his keynote address at the ITU World Telecom in Geneva this week to unveil Wireless Provisioning Services (WPS) for subscribers to public access hot spots.

WPS will become available as a downloadable software upgrade to Windows XP and as a Service Pack release for Windows Server 2003 in the first quarter of 2004.

WPS will create a Microsoft standard for accessing IEEE 802.11x hot spots from participating Wi-Fi providers.

Users signing on to a public access hot spot must currently navigate through each provider's unique user interface to gain access to the network. The WPS code, which will be embedded in XP and Server 2003 and will be available as a free download in first quarter 2004, promises to simplify that task.

"When the user's computer identifies a Wi-Fi signal, the operator sends out an XML-based form which in turn is recognized by the client device," said Jawad Khaki, corporate vice president for Windows Network and Communications Technologies.

If the client is currently a subscriber, the device will be logged onto the network without the need to fill out the sign-up form a second time.

On the back end, security for both hot spot providers and users is accomplished by using the authentication protocols in Server 2003 that include Internet Authentication Service or Microsoft Radius server and PEAP (Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol). On the client side, XP supports WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access). 

The server software is available to providers using Windows Server 2003 only.

While not all public access providers use Windows Server 2003 as part of their server infrastructure, most of them nevertheless have voiced support for the technology, including executives at Boingo Wireless, Cometa Networks, Gric Communications, iPass, Pronto Networks, and Wayport.

Beta versions of the software will be available for download later this quarter.

Gates will also announce a broad effort with Vodafone to use Web services technologies to bridge the PC world with that of mobile operator services.

James Niccolai, San Francisco Bureau Chief at IDG News Service, contributed to this story.