SIM authentication for O2 WiFi

[evantkh]

Does O2 Wifi support SIM authentication or in the future? It is risky to connect to open O2 WiFi because there is no mutual authentication between the phone and the network.

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

Wifi extra is authenticated on sim.
The other free public wifi hotspots aren't.

[evantkh]

What is the SSID for it? Is it having the same coverage as normal O2 Wifi?

[MI5]

No, it's only certain areas and certain phones that support it.
Authentication is fully automatic, ie you can't choose to log on to it.

[MI5]

A link to some more info here https://www.o2wifi.co.uk/legacy/my/extra

[evantkh]

As I know, SIM authenticated WiFi still requires the user to specify the SSID and choose to use SIM to authenticate the network in the settings. Have you ever use it beforeIf yes, can you show me the saved SSID?

[MI5]

O2 wifi extra doesn't work like that, you are connected to it automatically if you are in a wifi extra area and the wifi speed is faster than your 3g/4g connection.

[evantkh]

I mean the initial setup like what you do at home, not logging in manually every time, or am I still getting wrong?

[MI5]

Yeah still misunderstood. O2 activate it on your account and from there on it's fully out of your hands.

[evantkh]

Is it something like an SSID built-in in an O2 variant of Android phone and iPhone and cannot be deleted. I see something like this on SKTelecom(Korea).

My phone is a Chinese phone which is designed to use with a Chinese SIM but not any foreign SIM, will I be able to manually connect to the SIM authenticated WiFi in the network settings?