Overview of a Wireless Roaming Environment
In a roaming wireless environment, subscribers can log in to a wireless access point at a variety of wireless locations owned by service providers that participate in a roaming network agreement. The wireless locations participating in the agreement can be owned by one or more service providers.
Typically, RADIUS manages information about subscribers between the wireless locations. A RADIUS server for an Internet service provider (ISP) manages authentication for its subscribers, and shares information with the other ISPs with which the service provider has a roaming agreement. Subscribers can log in to an SAE from any supported site.
The SAE provides support for RADIUS vendor-specific attributes for wireless Internet service provider roaming (WISPr). For more information about these attributes, see
http://www.wi-fialliance.org/opensection/wispr.asp
Subscriber Access in a Wireless Roaming Environment
When subscribers log in to a wireless location that has a roaming agreement with other locations, the following sequence of events occurs:
- Subscribers connect to the local wireless location and provide login information on a portal page that provides a universal access method. This login information is forwarded to the SAE.
- Based on the login information, an access service starts.
- The subscriber is authenticated by RADIUS; the authorization includes RADIUS vendor-specific attributes for WISPr.
- Policies are activated for the subscriber on the router.
- After successful start of the access service, the portal page redirects the subscriber to a specified start page.
Figure 51 shows how subscribers interact with an SAE-managed wireless location that has a roaming agreement with wireless locations.
