Supporting Network Access and Service Location in Dynamic Environments

The ubiquity of WLAN services, ranging from campus networks to commercial hotspots and community WLAN services, requires a new approach for automatically locating and using services. We present a service selection infrastructure independent of the current network attachment and location of users in a way that users can obtain information of a specific network (or any other service) without being required to be connected to a particular one. Information about networks and services are distributed in a way that allows for using this information offline, e.g., when still looking for appropriate network access.