Pete Biggs wrote: >>> Yes, I do it frequently with my phone. You do it once and it remembers >>> it. My phone is more often on wifi than on 4G when I'm in a town. >> >> And you need to install certificates or enter a password or something? > > Yes. Just once, then things are remembered and you can seemlessly roam > between various APs and networks. What do you need internet access so urgently for while you´re in a shop? >>> Because you get faster data rates and in the middle of a big shop you >>> don't get a phone signal. >> >> How do you get faster data rates? In a shop that even has a 100Mbit internet >> connection and 50 customers using it, you would get only 2Mbit. > > 4G isn't ubiquitous, 3G/EDGE is still common - and phone networks are > patchy and slow. Then why do ppl pay so much for it? >> How do the shops prevent you from getting a phone signal? > > Why "prevent"? They somehow have to prevent you, or you would get a signal. > I never said that. Shops are essentially big metal boxes > covered in wires and fluorescent lights, with the phone transmitter > outside and an indeterminate distance away. Phone signals are weak and > attenuated by the big metal box so your phone gives up on the network. Phone signals are fine here. We would need to somehow block the signals. > Shops provide a "free" wifi as a service to its customers (nothing is > free, they get the chance to harvest information about your presence in > the store - if you don't like it, don't use their wifi, it's not > compulsory). right >> >>> In general the user knows nothing about RADIUS - you are presented with >>> a username/password box when you first connect to the wifi and that is >>> it. >> >> Those are particularly painful to enter, but I guess it could be used >> for some customers. > > <sigh> yes, mobile devices can be awkward to type on. If they had full > size keyboards they wouldn't be easy to fit in your pocket. > >>> >>> RADIUS is a very mature technology and as such there are lots of ways >>> of using it. >> >> Well, I don´t know about any of this. I found out that RADIUS is probably >> what I could or should use to get things working as intended, so I tried to >> find documentation on /how/ to use it and found nothing but documentation which >> says that it could be used, which I already know. >> > RADIUS is just the authentication mechanism. Often that is a backend > process and comes along with something that says "authentication can be > provided by LDAP, RADIUS or ....". Something like? > All the other things like PXE or WPA > or 802.1x or VPN or whatever is frontend technology and use a RADIUS > server to authenticate. I thought PXE doesn´t?