Our wireless network previously used a preshared WPA/WPA2 key for guest access, which allows them access to the Internet. (Our employee access uses 802.1x authentication). We just had a wireless consultant come in to fix various wireless issues we had; one of the things he wound up doing was changing our guest access to HTML-based instead of the preshared key. So now that guest SSID is open (instead of using WPA) and users are presented with a browser-based login screen before they can get on the Internet.

My question is: Is this an acceptable method from a security standpoint? I would assume that having an open network is necessarily a bad idea, but the consultant said that the traffic is still using PEAP, so it's secure. I didn't get a chance to question him further on this because we ran late and a bunch of other things came up.

Please let me know what you think about the advantages/disadvantages of using HTML-based wireless authentication as opposed to using a preshared WPA key. Thanks...