Full FeedAT&T WiFi hotspot auto-authentication courtesy of OS 3.0
Turns out there’s another feature you might not be fully familiar with in iPhone OS 3.0. It’s called auto-authentication, and if you live in the US, you may even care. AT&T has over 20,000 WiFi hotspots scattered across the globe (think McDonalds) and now your iPhone can access them, for free, with ease.
It used to be that you’d have a far-longer-than-necessary authentication process that really made using AT&T hotspots painful. In fact, I normally just continue to use my existing 3G or EDGE data stream since I hate the process so very much. But now, the iPhone can skip right past all of that and get you to the internet faster than ever. And since WiFi is almost always faster than 3G, that’s a good thing. AT&T even likes it because it takes stress off of their 3G network. All you need is iPhone OS 3.0 and a data plan, which is required with your iPhone anyway.
This is all thanks to what’s called 802.21 (No, not 802.11, and don’t feel embarrassed, I had to look it up too). It allows for a handoff from a cellular network to a WiFi network. But all that really matter is you can now (likely) walk into a McDonalds and use their WiFi for free, without any effort.
You can read more about all of this in detail on the AT&T Press Release.
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Don’t mean to be a pain but it is in the title of the article. It’s courtesy not curtousy.
on June 19, 2009 at 10:27 AM - LINK