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Aruba announced the news Wednesday, May 12 in Shanghai. The global alliance formed by the two giants will be one of Asia's largest markets for Wi-Fi systems and services.

According to the [url=http://www.arubanetworks.com/company/news/release.php?id=240]press release[/url], Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell will deliver to carriers and enterprises in China complete Wi-Fi solutions, remote access, and network management solutions sourced from Aruba.

Interesting, that would mean they must incorporate WAPI into their produsts to sell into China as are some of the client vendors such as Apple and others.

Well if Apple can get it to work!

From the sound of the previous discussion WAPI is a lot like EAP-TLS. As EAP-TLS relies on client certificates then Aruba wouldn't need to do anything to be compatible with it, the EAP process happens mostly between the supplicant and the AS.

What about the encryptions mechanisms?

From CWNPChina;
[quote]The physical layer is almost same for WAPI and 802.11i, with differences on MAC layer. So it is possible to support two standards on the same WLAN chipset.[/quote]
So that really wouldn't be a big deal to add support for.

But will they remove support for EAP, and support for x.509 certs?

If the Chinese require WAPI, I am betting they are not going to allow simultaneous authentication/encryption standards.

I am guessing that these devices will be "cost reduced" Chinese versions.