The Wireless Broadband Alliance wants a ‘zero-touch’ seamless and secure onboarding process for Internet of Things (IoT) wi-fi devices
The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) announced a new framework for integrating FIDO Device Onboard (FDO) and WBA OpenRoaming. This initiative enables a ‘zero-touch’ seamless and secure onboarding process for Internet of Things (IoT) wi-fi devices, parallel to the simplicity and security of wi-fi device onboarding using OpenRoaming.
FDO is an automatic onboarding scheme where a manufacturer commits credentials to a device so that it can be onboarded with less effort when it arrives at a customer site. The FDO process is seamless cellular devices because they are designed to automatically connect to the network when powered up (assuming that a valid access account is configured). However, this is currently not the case for wi-fi-based devices.
Alternative wi-fi device onboarding methods, such as using a QR code, may be sufficient for the consumer market but not for Enterprise/Industrial use cases involving thousands of devices. This is hindering a mass market for Wi-Fi-based IoT devices. According to Ericsson’s mobility report, around 80 percent of all IoT devices use short range radio technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee.
The WBA believes it has cracked this by integrating OpenRoaming and FDO. By automating the onboarding process, this allows headless and other pre-configured FDO IoT devices to be onboarded straight out of the box using OpenRoaming, it can then receive new OpenRoaming credentials, allowing it to connect via OpenRoaming permanently, or receive credentials to connect to a private wi-fi network for a permanent connection.
Once a device with FDO is onboarded using OpenRoaming, it can receive new OpenRoaming credentials, allowing it to connect via OpenRoaming permanently, or it can receive credentials to connect to a private wi-fi network for a permanent connection.
Wi-fi-based IoT devices have historically faced challenges due to the complexity of manual onboarding processes, making large-scale deployment inefficient. By leveraging the OpenRoaming global network of millions of hotspots, the onboarding process becomes seamless, accelerating the adoption of wi-fi-based IoT devices across sectors like smart cities, manufacturing and logistics.
Working together
The WBA’s “OpenRoaming for IoT – FIDO Device Onboarding Framework” report details how these technologies work together to simplify and secure the onboarding process for IoT devices, transforming large scale IoT deployments.
“Since 2018, our vision has been to enable secure, automatic wi-fi onboarding by harnessing existing wi-fi IoT device certificates. This requires a united, industry-wide effort, and WBA is the ideal body to lead the charge,” said Enea director of delivery services Tomas Bäckström. “This framework could be a game-changer in solving long-standing challenges for large-scale deployments across industries like smart cities and logistics, and we eagerly anticipate seeing the first devices hit the market.”
“WBA’s work on zero-touch onboarding with OpenRoaming and managing the ownership of industrial IoT devices with FIDO will address a critical industry challenge and facilitate large-scale deployments of these devices. Intel is proud to lead this initiative at WBA,” said Intel senior staff wireless architect and WBA board director Dr Necati Canpolat.
The framework delivers zero-touch, secure onboarding, which automates device onboarding, enhancing operational efficiency and ensuring secure authentication. It also covers complex deployments and provisioning challenges. In addition, if offers supply chain security because it ensures device security through ownership vouchers and cryptographic mechanisms.
“This new framework will turbocharge secure and efficient IoT device deployments, overcoming the challenges of onboarding IoT devices into a wi-fi network. This framework standardises OpenRoaming for FDO, encouraging a widespread adoption and cross-industry collaboration, and will enable a wide range of industries to benefit from improved operational efficiency and security across their IoT devices into wi-fi networks,” said WBA CEO Tiago Rodrigues.