My Wi-Fi and I

Can't we all just get along? It's time to come to terms with your inner wireless LAN.

The days of carriers seeing wireless LANs as enemies of 3G are up. With everyone making nice, carriers want their own 802.11 Wi-Fi standard WLANs as complements to their wide area nets.

But first they have to make Wi-Fi usage and billing easy. With Nokia's solution, used by Sonera in Finland, users slide GSM SIM cards into corresponding wireless LAN cards (these guys have more cards than Hallmark). When they log onto the Wi-Fi network, it connects to the billing system for Sonera's GSM net.

Customers from other GSM networks can roam into Sonera's Wi-Fi territory, and Sonera customers can roam elsewhere. Nokia is the only vendor that offers the integrated Wi-Fi gear with the SIM card, said Pasi Tolonen, vice president of Sonera mobile business services. “International roaming without the SIM card is a daydream,” he said.

Sonera has built out 802.11 coverage in 80 hot spots (insert sauna joke here) and plans to build another 200 this year.

But signs of Wi-Fi network convergence in the U.S. are just surfacing, even as debate rages about the need for seamless integration. Tolonen's take: “Have you ever seen anyone walking along in an airport using a laptop?”