Gemplus and Transat ink Wi-Fi security agreement

Likely to lead to a SIM card based offering

A partnership between Gemplus and Transat Technologies was announced today with the focus on one of this year's hot topics - securing wireless LANs. Smart card company Gemplus will combine Transat's Wireless Access Internet Node system - or WAIN - with its own technology. WAIN is a way of authenticating WLAN users, a pressing concern for IT managers within enterprises and service providers offering public WLAN 'hot spots'. The teaming up should provide end users with secure SIM cards, which will also allow roaming between Wi-Fi wireless LANs that use the 802.11 standard and cellular GPRS networks, which offer greater coverage but at a fraction of Wi-Fi speed. The fruit of the two companies' co-operation will be sold to mobile network operators. A typical user could be a laptop owner who, using wireless, downloads emails and surfs the web while at home or work but also at other locations, where there is no trusted WLAN coverage.