Question - I would like to know what Wireless Access Points (with
RADIUS clients built in) companies like T-Mobile (Starbucks), Boingo,
etc use for their locations.

(Basically I am looking for WAP's that can remotely talk to a radius
server for user authentication and accounting. I am looking for a WAP
that will bring up a login page asking for usename/password when the
laptop user tries to access the internet at the service locations. For
my purpose this page has to be residing remotely, since I will be
making changes to the page frequently and this needs to get reflected
across all the service locations. I have looked into Orinoco AP -2500,
Zyxel and a few others. The price is also a factor)

Hi,

If I were doing this, I'd use an AP from Sputnik. The AP 160 includes
a four-port 10/100 Base-T router (wired LAN) for configuration
flexibility. Because both the wireless and wired LAN ports on the AP
160 can be managed remotely, the device offers functionality similar
to public access gateways that sell for several times its price.

http://www.sputnik.com/products/aps.html

In addition to remote management, there is an option to redirect users
to your external website after login, giving you the extra centralized
control you are looking for.

Regards,

Philip

I would recommend that you use a solution from microtik
www.microtik.com they are a Latvia-based company and has a command
line configuration interface from a stripped down linux kernel. It
comprises of both hardware and software and can authenticate using set
up accounts or external RADIUS server, assign IP addresses
dynamically, throttle access based on bandwidth available and can
display in realtime how many users are connected and what addresses
have been assigned etc

Price about us$ 750 for HOTSPOT bundle comprising of external 14dbi
external antenna, routerboard (contains intellignece) and card for
802.11 ABG connections etc.

Wish you all the best.

David

T-Mobile uses Cisco access points.  Mostly 340s, 350s, 1100s and 1200s
as far as I can tell from their mac addresses.  These access points
however don't do the web-based authentication.  This web-based
authentication must done in the back end using a captive portal
server.  When logging into a Starbucks, you will see your first web
query gets re-directed to a secure (https://) login screen where you
enter username and password.  The username and password combination is
checked against some sort of a database (LDAP, TACACS or RADIUS) When
successful, you get a welcome page.  The subscriber either logs out or
walks away and times out.

Here is a webpage that describes what a captive portal server does in more detail:
http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/CaptivePortal

Here is a page that shows you many of the captive portal softwares
that are available:
http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/PortalSoftware

A good RADIUS server can be found at http://www.freeradius.org 

T-Mobile has also been talking about doing 802.1x authentication. 
Cisco 350s, 1100s and 1200s will act as 802.1x authenticators and talk
to a radius server directly using EAPOL.
see http://www.t-mobile.com/company/pressroom/pressrelease83.asp
and http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/story/0,10801,79995,00.html?from=story_picks

Boingo uses Lynksys Wireless G routers WRV54G.  Their solution
downloads special code that runs in the Wireless VPN router.  Most
likely they open an IPSec tunnel through your DSL or Cable network to
a secure server that does the login.  The solution seems to be pretty
much tailored to work with their servers.
http://www.boingo.com/hso/hsiab/index.html 

If you want to run captive portal software in an inexpensive access
point, it can be done with the Linksys WRT54G.  See this link:
http://www.portless.net/ewrt/index.html

There is a Linux firewall product called M0n0wall that can be
configure as a Captive Portal (CP): http://m0n0.ch/wall/features.php

You can't get much cheaper than free. You supply the hardware. What
you need is any old PC that boots from a CD rom, three Network cards
(one for WAN, one for LAN, one for CP). For a wireless CP you can
either use a wireless NIC and put it in the computer, or use a wired
NIC and attach any regular access point to it (not a firewall/router).
M0n0wall works with Radius auth and even allows you to shape traffic
to limit bandwidth.

Here's a detailed how to from Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Sections-article92.php