Facilitating residential wireless roaming via VPN connectivity over public service provider networks

An apparatus comprising:

• circuitry configured to receive at a user device from a home access point via a wireless local area network corresponding to the home access point, a first digital certificate for a residential wireless roaming mode, wherein the residential wireless roaming mode provides the user device remote access to the wireless local area network corresponding to the home access point from at least one public access point, wherein the wireless local area network is a residential in-home network, and wherein the first digital certificate is issued by a certificate authority of a service provider associated with the home access point, wherein the certificate authority is managed by the service provider or a federated third party;
• circuitry configured to transmit, while the user device is outside the wireless local area network corresponding to the home access point, at least one probe request message to the at least one public access point, wherein the at least one probe request message comprises at least the first digital certificate, wherein the at least one probe request message comprises:
• a first vendor specific field indicating the first digital certificate;
• and
• a second vendor specific field indicating that the user device supports the residential wireless roaming mode;
• and
• circuitry configured to receive from the at least one public access point a probe response message comprising information for remotely accessing the wireless local area network corresponding to the home access point, with the user device, via a virtual private network connection established between the at least one public access point and the home access point.

A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions for causing an apparatus to perform at least the following:

• receiving, at a user device from a home access point via a wireless local area network corresponding to the home access point, a first digital certificate for a residential wireless roaming mode, wherein the residential wireless roaming mode provides the user device remote access to the wireless local area network corresponding to the home access point from at least one public access point, wherein the wireless local area network is a residential in-home network, and wherein the first digital certificate is issued by a certificate authority of a service provider associated with the home access point, wherein the certificate authority is managed by the service provider or a federated third party;
• transmitting, while the user device is outside the wireless local area network corresponding to the home access point, at least one probe request message to the at least one public access point, wherein the at least one probe request message comprises at least the first digital certificate, wherein the at least one probe request message comprises:
• a first vendor specific field indicating the first digital certificate;
• and
• a second vendor specific field indicating that the user device supports the residential wireless roaming mode;
• and
• receiving from the at least one public access point a probe response message comprising information for remotely accessing the wireless local area network corresponding to the home access point, with the user device, via a virtual private network connection established between the at least one public access point and the home access point.