The dreaded Wi-Fi captive portal. The cumbersome web page demanding an email, a room number, or a click of “Agree” is an antiquated relic of the pre-smartphone era. It’s an exercise in user frustration and, more importantly, a security liability that modern enterprises can no longer tolerate. The technology to finally kill it is here, and it’s called Passpoint (or Hotspot 2.0).
Passpoint is not a future technology; it is the current (established in 2011) standard defined by the Wi-Fi Alliance that fundamentally shifts Wi-Fi behavior from a manual connection to an automatic, cellular-like roaming experience.
Seamless Security: The Passpoint Promise
At its core, Passpoint replaces the insecure web login with certificate-based, enterprise-grade authentication. Once a user downloads a Passpoint profile (often provisioned directly by a Mobile Network Operator, employer, or venue operator), their device never needs to ask for credentials again.
Key benefits for the enterprise:
- Mandatory Security: Passpoint enforces WPA2/WPA3-Enterprise from the first handshake, ensuring the connection is fully encrypted. This eliminates the vulnerability of connecting to an open network before authentication—a significant win for a zero-trust architecture.
- Effortless Roaming: For multi-site organizations or large venues, a user can move across access points and even between different venues with Passpoint roaming agreements without interruption, providing a true “cellular-like” experience.
- Operational Savings: Less time spent by IT resolving tedious login issues translates directly into reduced helpdesk tickets and higher employee productivity.
Passpoint Vendors and the Service Model
Major Wi-Fi infrastructure providers have fully integrated Passpoint into their offerings. Passpoint functionality is often bundled within the network management software, which is typically sold under a monthly or annual subscription fee tied to the number of access points or users.
- Cisco: Cisco (along with its Meraki cloud-managed portfolio) utilizes Passpoint technology within their access points and controllers to simplify BYOD and guest access. The feature is activated through their respective network management subscriptions.
- Aruba (HPE): Aruba’s networking solutions, particularly via their Air Pass service, leverage Passpoint profiles provisioned by MNOs (often via the user’s SIM card) to extend 5G cellular roaming onto the enterprise Wi-Fi network.
- Specialized Providers: Companies like Nomadix and Boingo (which offers Passpoint Secure) focus heavily on providing managed Passpoint services, particularly for high-density environments like hospitality and airports, often paid via a monthly service fee.
Why Passpoint Hasn’t Fully Killed the Captive Portal Yet
Despite the technology being available for over a decade (the Hotspot 2.0 standard was finalized in 2011), Passpoint adoption has been slow primarily due to a challenging “Chicken-and-Egg” problem and high initial technical complexity. For years, Access Providers (venues) hesitated to make the substantial investment in upgrading to the certificate-based security and PKI infrastructure required by Passpoint, as there wasn’t widespread consumer demand. Conversely, consumers lacked the incentive to provision their devices for Passpoint when they couldn’t reliably find a network that supported it. The high technical bar (moving far beyond a simple web server redirect to require robust EAP and RADIUS setup with secure MNO integration) further slowed adoption for all but the largest tech-savvy enterprises and major carriers.
Adding to the complexity, many venues rely on the simplicity of the old captive portal for non-technical reasons, such as marketing control (collecting emails and demographic data) and establishing legal compliance by forcing users to explicitly click and accept terms and conditions. These commercial and legal requirements were not easily satisfied by earlier Passpoint releases. While newer features, like those promoted by the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) through OpenRoaming, are now addressing the complexity and roaming barriers, these four historical headwinds are why the cumbersome, unencrypted, and inherently insecure captive portal remains a frustrating reality in many public places today.
Passpoint vs. MOCN: The Right Tool for the Job
While Passpoint is the answer for next-generation Wi-Fi access, it’s crucial to distinguish its role from the cellular domain.
Passpoint is about making Wi-Fi seamless and secure. MOCN (Multi-Operator Core Network), on the other hand, is a 3GPP standard for carriers (like those utilized by InfiniG or Celona) to share cellular infrastructure and spectrum.
Both Passpoint (Wi-Fi) and MOCN (Cellular) aim to solve the same problem, seamless connectivity, but through different protocols. For an IT leader, the choice isn’t always one or the other:
- Passpoint is ideal for enabling employee devices and general guest access using existing Wi-Fi investment.
- MOCN-based solutions are often better for business-critical IoT, large-scale automation, and extending the full MNO cellular signal into signal-deficient spaces, encompassing both complex industrial facilities and modern commercial real estate not built with adequate cellular signal penetration in mind.
The most advanced enterprises recognize that a successful connectivity strategy integrates the best of both: using Passpoint to deliver a superior user experience on the Wi-Fi network while leveraging private cellular (often enabled by MOCN architecture) for dedicated operational technology. The frustrating captive portal, thankfully, has no place in either future.
