By now, anyone reading this blog has surely accessed a WiFi hotspot at some point.  You know which one.. you’re at an airport or a hotel, you need to get online.  You connect to the strongest, unsecured WiFi network you can find, only to be faced with a login page asking you for a username/password or voucher code or your credit card details.

The portal page was always a stop-gap solution for semi-secured WiFi networks.  I say semi-secured because the network is not fully-unrestricted-connect-and-go, but neither is it really secure.  It just wants to know who you are before it lets you in.  The problem with that is that browsers vary slightly between screen sizes, operating systems and languages.  This makes it very difficult to maintain a login page suitable to as many users as possible.

Also, the user may have a simple WiFi device (such as a monochrome Amazon Kindle), with a slow and difficult to use internet browser.  Or maybe he’s connecting using a WiFi-enabled mobile phone, which has a tiny screen and even tinier keyboard.  Having to log in each time you want to access the internet quickly makes it a chore we would want to avoid.

Enter WISPr.  WISPr has been around for a few years, and I don’t want to bore you with all the technicalities. Essentially, it’s a technology which allows the WiFi network to know who/what is connecting to it, in as clean a way as possible.  Because not many devices supported WISPr, it was pretty much lying dormant at the back of the minds of wireless engineers like us.  Some Hotspot operators implemented it, or parts of it, but never saw any major use of it.  All AIR Wireless hotspots already support WISPr, but we have never seen anybody actually use it, since it was not supported by many devices.  Now all that is about to change!

Windows 8 is the latest incarnation of much-loved-and-hated Microsoft Windows OS which runs on practically every single desktop and laptop computer.  Apart from the fancy graphics and tiles introduced in this version, Microsoft has quietly added WISPr support to Win8.  When a Windows 8 laptop or tablet connects to a hotspot supporting WISPr, instead of having to navigate through a badly-designed web page to log in, you will be presented with a nice, clean Windows 8-style prompt, asking you if you already have an account or if you need to sign up.

The great thing about this is that, once you have a voucher code or username/password in hand, you can simply click “Yes, I’ll enter my username and password” on this prompt and Windows will ask you to enter a username and password.  No browsers, no scrolling, just a simple login box.

We’re still playing around with this great new Windows 8 feature, but you can be sure that once we have a solid understanding of how Windows 8 interacts with WiFi Hotspots via WISPr, this functionality can easily be implemented into all WiFi Hotspots which we have already installed or will be installing in future!