WLAN smart card consortium launched

A new industry consortium will develop standards for smart card technology to help corporate users gain secure, easy access to public high-speed wireless Internet networks sprouting up around the globe.

The WLAN Smart Card Consortium aims to establish a set of specifications to allow business people to use smart cards to access public WLAN (Wireless LAN) hotspots around the world and pay for the service. The consortium is being launched by 19 companies and institutions including Alcatel of France, Dai Nippon Printing of Japan, Infineon Technologies of Germany and Texas Instruments of the U.S., the group said Thursday in a joint statement.

The consortium intends to support existing standards but will also define new specifications to allow traveling business people and others to use smart card technology when roaming WLAN hotspots worldwide. They would be able to pay for this service and other personalized offerings in an easy, secure way, the statement said.

The founding members of the consortium include IT and telecommunication equipment manufacturers, chip card vendors and academic institutions such as ÉcoleNationaleSupérieure des Télécommunications in France. They will work closely with organizations like the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in the U.S., the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other organizations such as the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, according to the consortium’s charter published on its Web site http://wlansmartcard.org.

The group will develop specifications of its own only in those cases where no existing specification exists, according to the Web site.

Representatives from the WLAN Smart Card Consortium could not be immediately reached for comment.

“The consortium is a very good idea,” said Philip Low, managing director of BroadGroup, a London consultancy specializing in broadband services. “Ubiquity and security are the big challenges facing the WLAN sector,” he said. “Corporate users want ubiquitous coverage and secure network service. Universal smart card technology could help provide this.”

But Low warned that some governments, such as the U.K., are concerned about privacy protection and smart cards. “There is some concern about personal data being stored on cards,” he said. “The issue is still the focus of much debate.”