Subject: [AAA-WG]: WECA 'extending' RADIUS?

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 05:54:33 -0700

via bert

Story date(time): 05/29/2001(02:18 AM) 
Effort afoot to provide wireless LAN roaming 
InfoWorld Daily News via DowVision 

By John Cox, Network World Fusion InfoWorld.com

A group of leading vendors is working to iron out the technical and
financial details needed to let mobile wireless LAN users connect
to almost any wireless ISP, similar to the way cell phone users can roam
and use multiple carriers to complete calls.

The Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA), which includes
Cisco, IBM, Intel, 3Com and Microsoft, is looking to forge
relationships and network standards among wireless ISPs and eventually
carriers that will enable roaming for 802.11b wireless LAN
users. These standards will let vendors share subscriber usage and
billing data, so no matter how many different ISPs' subscribers are
used to make a connection from a plane, train or automobile, they only
get one bill from their "home" ISP.

According to WECA members involved in the roaming project, the public
access wireless LANs now being deployed in airports,
convention centers and even restaurants will create a burgeoning web of
wireless LAN hot spots. These hot spots will let mobile
workers, with 802.11b-equipped computers, connect over a shared
11M-bit/sec link to Internet-based services and corporate
networks. Most wide-area wireless data links today are based on much
slower cell phone nets.

"What we're talking about is interservice provider roaming. As you go
from a corporate to a public net, you want to have user ID and
a password for the ISP. But you don't want to have a different one for
every wireless ISP net that you might traverse," said Greg
Homan, director of systems engineering at MobileStar Network of
Richardson, Texas, and a spokesman for the Wireless Internet
Service Provider Roaming (WISPr), a contingent within WECA that is
preparing the roaming proposal. "Within a corporate wireless
LAN, roaming among access points is handled as part of the 802.11b
protocol."

The group is a mix of service providers, LAN equipment vendors and PC
makers, including Agere Systems, Dell, Enterasys and Nokia
and wireless ISPs MobileStar and Wayport. A draft will be presented at
the next WECA board meeting, June 13 in Helsinki, Finland.

"Having roaming agreements is a great idea for any network," said Andy
Kasznay, software engineer with Northeast Utilities in Berlin,
Conn. The utility uses a cellular phone network to connect field workers
with laptops or PDAs to corporate data. "We currently don't
use 802.11b networks because there are only very limited locations where
they're available and a limited number of providers."

Kasznay is clear on what he'd want from such a service as proposed by
WISPr. "One service provider with one bill," he said. "As far
as cost is concerned, it must be similar in cost to dial-up connections
from a hotel room, including the hotel fees and long-distance
charges for an average user session, but with faster throughput
[compared to dial up]."

He's also convinced a WISPr service would be used mainly by the
utility's traveling executives and managers, not by electricians and
others in the field. "The area that our field force covers is far too
broad to be served by such a network," Kasznay said.

Other issues could slow the roaming proposal. For example, the reach of
such a wireless LAN (WLAN) service will still be severely
limited compared to the cell networks because 802.11b, sometimes called
Wi-Fi, is a local network with a radio range of roughly 150
feet. The public access WLANs being created by the likes of wireless
ISPs MobileStar and Wayport, initially will be found in urban,
high-density areas. Most of these public WLANs are targeted at
white-collar business travelers. Blue-collar mobile workers likely will
have to rely on low-speed, but widespread, cell networks, such as
Cellular Digital Packet Data nets, for accessing data wirelessly. In
addition, the service providers that go forward with the WISPr roaming
will have to ensure they're offering a simple connection
process and a single bill to make such roaming a desirable service for
target users. And then there are security concerns.

Specifically, WISPr is looking to define a tag that users could tack
onto their subscriber name. The tag will alert any WISP that the
user requesting service is "owned" by some other provider. Data about
the user and the service request will be passed to an
independent clearinghouse, which would coordinate transactions among
different parties-in this case, the WISPs.

WISPr spokesman Homan said the arrangement will most likely use the
Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS)
protocol, which is widely used to coordinate authorization information
between remote users and an authorization server. The
clearinghouse would pass the user data to that user's WISP, which then
completes the authentication, bills the user and makes the
appropriate payment to the WISP serving as the user's access connection.
Users can then access their home WISP services and,
through the provider, their corporate net.

WISPr members said the technology for sharing data between the ISPs is
relatively straightforward and most of the complexity
involves setting up standards for handling transactions between service
providers.

"The billing systems are key to this," Homan said. "We're extending the
RADIUS protocol with specific [new] attributes, such as user
name, time spent online, bytes in or out, and so on. We'll also have
information about where the user is, through a location code, so
we can return site-specific services to that user."

A WISP subscriber from the U.S., gaining access via a wireless LAN
service in a Swedish airport, would receive information in
English, for example.

Keeping it simple will be the key to user acceptance, said Jeff Manning,
business development manager at Agere. "We've failed if this
is difficult [to use]," he says. "Everyone has a vested interest in
making this work."

There will be significant investment. The overall 802.11b market is
expected to keep growing at a healthy rate despite the economic
slowdown, according to an April report by Cahners In-Stat. By 2005, the
firm estimates that companies will be spending nearly $6.4
billion on WLAN equipment. Companies such as IBM, Compaq and Dell are
introducing notebook PCs with built-in 802.11b radios and
antennas. Adapter card vendors have just started bringing out 802.11b
cards for handheld computers, such as those using the
Microsoft PocketPC software.

The carriers are watching the project closely, according to WISPr
members. "There's a tremendous amount of work going on by all
the carriers," said Allan Scott, business manager for the Americas at
Agere. "They're all involved in Wi-Fi products. They're very quiet
about it, but they're all doing it."

The WISPr group has no set schedule to complete its work, so it's
difficult to say exactly when 802.11b roaming will become reality.
Agere's Manning says he hopes the group will have a final document by
year-end. Users can expect to see roaming being
implemented more widely in the next two years, with the pace
accelerating as carriers get into the action as the number of WLAN
clients surges, each one representing a potential subscriber for
wireless data services.
------- end of forwarded message -------

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From: Pat Calhoun <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 06:33:42 -0700

Another case of a group of vendors finding the fact that RADIUS has an RFC is
most convenient. Another reason for us to get done quickly :)

PatC

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From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 08:22:59 -0700 (PDT)

A good argument for "Expert review" as opposed to IANA assignment ;)

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From: John Schnizlein <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 11:45:21 -0400

What is the fuss about?
The reporter discovered that using RADIUS accounting for 802.11b
wireless access exploits the benefits built into it for dial access.
Nice of him to notice, but not a technology breakthrough.

The article does not mention any extensions to RADIUS,
it simply describes a new use of RADIUS, especially its capability
for global roaming through what we have been calling proxy forwarding.
The "tag" the article mentions is just the home domain.

The discussion about the importance of billing might create the
impression of something new, but it looks like RADIUS accounting to me.
And clearinghouse technology for RADIUS accounting has been used for
PPP and voice calls, so this is not new either.

Considering who has chimed in on this thread, 
I am now wearing my flame-retardant shorts. ;-)

John

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From: "Glen Zorn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 11:13:27 -0700

Randy Bush [maILTO:[email-masked]] writes:

One wonders if these people have ever heard of roamops (or the IETF, for
that matter)...but wait, wireless is _differenr_ ;-)

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From: "Glen Zorn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 14:26:44 -0700

> Nice of him to notice, but not a technology breakthrough.

If it was just the reporter it wouldn't bother me, but it seems that WISPr
itself is on a voyage of discovery through laboriously charted lands...

> The "tag" the article mentions is just the home domain.

From the article:

"Specifically, WISPr is looking to define a tag that users could tack onto
their subscriber name.
                                   ^^^^^^
The tag will alert any WISP that the user requesting service is "owned" by
some other provider."

RFC 2486.

> PPP and voice calls, so this is not new either.

From the article, again:
'"The billing systems are key to this," Homan said. "We're extending the
RADIUS protocol with specific [new] attributes, such as user name, time
spent online, bytes in or out, and so on. We'll also have information about
where the user is, through a location code, so we can return site-specific
services to that user.'

Of these, the only thing that is new is the "location code" (which poses
significant privacy issues, BTW).  Note that this quote is from a WISPr
"spokesman", not the reporter.  Although it's certainly possible that he was
misquoted, if this statement is close to accurate we have people "extending"
the RADIUS protocol with "features" already present in it...