Wi-Fi to become No-Fi

IN A MOVE worthy of the worst kind of Network Nazi, iPass is planning to lock out a whole swathe of its user base after 22nd April when the company upgrades its client software, and simultaneously withdraws support for earlier versions.

According to Douglas Loewe, md for iPass EMEA, his company is happy to take the hit, to ensure an absolutely secure network. iPass's aim is to guarantee secure, end-to-end, roaming via any available connexion - be it dialup, ISDN, Ethernet (in a hotel room), GPRS, 3G or Wi-Fi.

The Achilles heel of Wi-Fi has always been security, something which the folks at iPass reckon they have cracked with their iPass Corporate Access service, albeit at a price.

The company's software takes control and 'locks down' the client's laptop or PDA, effectively enforcing its security policy by ensuring the PC is running the latest versions of firewalls, virus checkers and the like.

After 22nd April, even if the user has a valid ID and password the system will disallow Internet access, if the software is out of date. iPass targets the top end of the enterprise market, with leading banks and pharmaceutical companies among its customers.

The secret, according to Douglas Loewe, is providing the 'cement between the bricks' of existing corporate security installations, by treating everyone as a potential threat, from an external laptop to an internal Intranet client. µ

Describing iPass as a "services company with software margins" Loewe explained that his product gives service providers the flexibly to offer a seamless end user Wi-Fi experience through a combination of their own hotspots, direct roaming agreements, and the 7,800 hotspots within the iPass Global Broadband Roaming (GBR) footprint in over 150 countries. The number of eligible hot spots is growing in London as teams of black vans hunt the metropolis for Wi-Fi hotspots to add to their collection. According to Loewe, some commercial Wi-Fi hot spots have a distinctly "home made" quality - hooking up a low cost Linksys access point to a single ADSL line, for example. By contrast every Wi-Fi hotspot on the iPass network is tested for security, quality and availability before it's added to the footprint. That's Wi-Fi with attitude.