Intel’s CTO to meet Chinese government over WAPI

Pat Gelsinger, chief technology officer of Intel Corp., is to meet with Chinese government officials during the next few days to discuss Intel’s concerns over China’s national wireless LAN (WLAN) security standard and an impending June 1 deadline for compliance with the standard.

The Standardization Administration of China (SAC) announced the development of a national WLAN standard in May 2003 and is demanding that all WLAN products sold in the country from June 1 this year support the standard. Called GB15629.11-2003, the standard is very similar to the IEEE’s 802.11 standard, commonly known as Wi-Fi, that is in use around the world but a major difference exists in the security protocol.

The Chinese system uses a protocol called WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI), which is not compatible with the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) that is part of the 802.11 standard. Details of the WAPI system have been shared with around 20 Chinese companies and no foreign IT makers, which means Intel and other foreign companies face the prospect of having to enter into co-production agreements with Chinese companies to gain access to the technology or risk having their products shut out of the Chinese market.

“I am meeting with Chinese officials this week specifically with (WAPI) as one of the topics,” Gelsinger said in Tokyo on Thursday. Gelsinger is scheduled to leave Japan for China later in the day.

“We have been very deeply involved with the WAPI issue, as you would expect given its impact on our products like Centrino,” he said. “At this point we have not made any public statements one way or the other over our support or not support for WAPI. We are still evaluating it and working with the Chinese government with regard to some of our concerns in that area.”

The implementation of the standard and its control by domestic companies is causing controversy.

“China is turning to special standards designed to limit foreign participation in key sectors,” said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick in an address to the Asia Society on Feb. 25, according to a copy of his prepared speech. “For example, China’s mandatory new encryption standard for wireless networking products would make China the only WTO member to introduce such a mandate for consumer products — a restriction compounded by granting domestic companies exclusive control over the technology.”

In a November letter to the SAC and China’s minister of information industry the chairman of the IEEE 802 Local and Metropolitan Area Network Standards Committee, Paul Nikolich, said “mandatory implementation of the WAPI protocols would unnecessarily fracture the world market for WLAN products.”