METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING NETWORK SERVICE INFORMATION TO A MOBILE STATION BY A WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORK

摘要

A wireless local area network (WLAN) communication system (300) that includes an access point (308) in communication with a mobile station (302) and at least one Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) server (314, 318) provides an authentication process whereby a user of the mobile station may select a WLAN service provider from among one or more WLAN service providers and/or one or more 3GPP service providers (322, 324) before being authenticated and further to make a decision to subscribe to the services of the selected service provider based on network service information, other than or in addition to an Service Set Identifier (SSID), associated with the selected service provider.