As the technologies behind 802.1X continue to evolve, iPass and Meetinghouse are working hard to make sure that this these wireless standards are something that will enable mobile enterprise to continue to grow in the right direction.
iPass and Meetinghouse have partnered to improve 802.1X support for mobile enterprise workers: Meetinghouse is one of the two companies focused on 802.1X and integrity checking for networks (Funk is the other), while iPass is the leading enterprise mobile access enabler. The two firms will work together to integrate Meetinghouse’s Aegis client into their iPassConnect client. This is interesting because Funk’s platform is all Windows on the client side, while Meetinghouse has Mac OS X (10.2), Linux, Unix, Windows, Palm, and Zaurus clients.
The overall goals are to make it much, much easier to provide authentication across a system without imposing a higher burden on the user, the enterprise the user works for, or the hotspot operator. This is possible, but it requires some sign-off from each party to make it simpler, which is always the crux of this kind of change.
802.1X provides the highest level of security for the wireless link on a Wi-Fi network by securing the credentials exchange, offering a unique network encryption key, and providing the option to regular change that key without user involvement beyond the initial login.
