Your Boarding Pass Is Your Wi-Fi Login

Hamad International Airport needed authenticated guest Wi-Fi for a global passenger base — without making an SMS one-time passcode the only way in. ANTlabs built an onboarding journey around the travel information passengers already carry, on a geo-redundant gateway pair across two data centers.

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The problem

Authenticated access that welcomes the traveler

A hub of this scale carries passengers from everywhere, most of them on roaming plans that behave unpredictably the moment they land. An SMS-only login looks simple on a whiteboard and fails in the terminal: the message is delayed, blocked by the home operator, or never arrives at all. The passenger is left standing under a sign that promises free Wi-Fi.

At the same time, the airport could not simply open the network. Guest access had to be authenticated, resilient, and centrally controlled — and it had to keep working when an upstream service did not.

An overhead view of a busy airport terminal concourse with Wi-Fi signal icons overlaid above the crowd — **Every arrival wave, at once.** Thousands of devices join the same network in the same moment — the pattern an SMS-only login was never built to survive.

Not everyone can rely on SMS or roaming

International travelers needed a way onto the network that did not depend entirely on mobile roaming or SMS delivery.

Authentication without added friction

Guest access had to be authenticated while keeping the passenger journey straightforward.

Scale to match a major hub

Licensed capacity and resilience had to match a large-airport guest environment.

Every portal screen, on brand

A fallback when the primary service fails

A contingency access path was required if the primary external authentication service became unavailable.

Defined support, not best-effort

The operational environment required defined technical support and restoration coverage.

The solution

Many ways in, one resilient network

The deployment pairs resilient ANTlabs gateway hardware with a heavily customized passenger portal and direct integration into airline and corporate systems. Two active/standby gateway pairs across two separate data centers keep the guest network geo-redundant, with several ways in for passengers and central management through ASP.

A real-time network location display with pins marking sites on a map, viewed in a terminal corridor — **Two data centers, one service.** Geo-redundant gateway pairs and centrally synchronized location data keep the guest network up even when one side goes down.

01 · InfrastructureInfrastructure and platformGateways, capacity, central management and support.6 items

SG4410S gatewaysFour units arranged as two active/standby pairs across two separate data centers, supporting geo-redundant high-availability guest Wi-Fi.
Licensed capacityA 15,000-device license with an additional 15,000-device burst allocation for periods of increased passenger demand.
ASP Service Management Platform (on premise)Deployed in active/standby architecture across both data centers for gateway configuration, portal customization, location synchronization and central administration.
DHCP serviceProvided by the ANTlabs gateway environment for the airport guest network.
Contingency access planThe Guest plan runs as the active service plan, with Auto-Login documented as a contingency option if the primary external authentication service is unavailable or degraded.
Support coverage24×7 phone and email support, software subscription, hardware replacement, onsite configuration and restoration, plus verification and testing under the applicable support plans.

02 · OnboardingPassenger onboardingBoarding-pass, booking-reference, SMS and WhatsApp login.8 items

ANTlabsEzScan boarding-pass scanningBarcode scanning implemented using a commercial barcode-reading component, reading and validating defined IATA boarding-pass fields.
Qatar Airways boarding-pass validationValidation uses the passenger’s PNR and last name extracted from the scanned boarding-pass barcode.
Non-Qatar Airways boarding-pass validationValidates selected boarding-pass fields for other carriers, including travel to or from Doha and the applicable flight date.
PNR and e-ticket authenticationA dedicated booking-reference flow lets passengers authenticate with PNR or e-ticket information. The Phase 2 enhancement retained the Qatar Airways backend authentication introduced in Phase 1.
Qatar Airways backend integrationThe custom portal includes a dedicated validation function connecting Wi-Fi onboarding to the existing Qatar Airways backend authentication service.
SMS authenticationProvided as an alternative onboarding method, including OTP processing and CAPTCHA support on the SMS page.
WhatsApp authenticationAvailable as an integrated authentication option through the portal’s WhatsApp processor.
Custom MAC blacklistingIdentifies repeated use of SMS-based guest Wi-Fi. PNR and e-ticket users are excluded from this validation.

03 · ExperienceExperience and extended journeysThe portal, two languages and the corporate guest flow.5 items

Customized passenger portalConfigurable login, success and error pages, terms and conditions, cookie information, country-code handling and portal configuration through ASP.
English and Arabic supportPortal labels and content in both languages, serving local and international travelers.
Airport website redirectionAuthenticated passengers are redirected to the official Hamad International Airport website, extending onboarding into the airport’s own digital channel.
Corporate guest portalA separate portal supporting registration, HIA administrator approval, email notification and access-code activation.
Corporate guest system integrationThe corporate portal integrates with HIA’s Enteract API to submit registration information and support the approval workflow.

A blurred data dashboard overlay in a warmly lit airport corridor with travelers walking past

The impact

What the deployment changed

For the passenger

Onboarding uses travel information the traveler already has, rather than waiting on a message that may never arrive.
Multiple login processors accommodate different traveler situations instead of forcing everyone down one path.
A successful login lands on the airport’s own website, turning a connectivity moment into a wayfinding and retail moment.

For airport operations

Redundant gateway pairs across two data centers support service resilience for the guest environment.
ASP centralizes portal and location management, simplifying ongoing administration.
Licensed capacity is large-scale and documented, with a defined burst allocation for demand peaks.
The contingency plan provides an alternative access approach when the primary external authentication service is unavailable.
Defined support, hardware replacement and restoration arrangements strengthen operational continuity.

Placeholder — customer quote pending reference approval

Suggested angle: passenger onboarding simplicity, or resilience during peak operations.

— [Name, Title], Hamad International Airport

Next step

Your hub, your carriers, your journey

Boarding-pass and booking-reference onboarding can be built around the airlines that actually fly your routes. Tell us who they are.

Talk to an airport connectivity specialist

A smiling traveler in traditional Gulf dress holding a tablet in an airport terminal, with departure boards in the background