PROVISIONING METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS (WLANS) WITH USE OF A PROVISIONING ESSID

摘要

Methods and apparatus for use in provisioning mobile communication devices in wireless local area networks (WLANs) are described. In one illustrative example, a mobile communication device associates with a wireless access point of a provisioning virtual local area network (VLAN) of the network with use of a provisioning network identifier ("provisioning ESSID"). After associating with the wireless acces s point of the provisioning VLAN, a primary network identifier ("primary ESSID") associated with a primary VLAN of the network is received from the WLAN in a provisioning procedure and stored in memory of the mobile device after authentication. For subseque nt communications with the WLAN, the mobile device associates with a wireless access point of the primary VLAN of the network with use of the primary network identifier.