Provisioning methods and apparatus for wireless local area networks (WLANS) with use of a provisioning ESSID

Methods and apparatus for use in provisioning mobile communication devices in wireless local area networks (WLANs) are described. A mobile communication device associates with a wireless access point of a provisioning virtual local area network (VLAN) of the network with use of a provisioning network identifier ("provisioning ESS1D"). After associating with the wireless access point of the provisioning VLAN, a primary network identifier ("primary ESSID") associated with a primary VLAN of the network is received from the WLAN in a provisioning procedure and stored in memory of the mobile device after authentication. For subsequent communications with the WLAN, the mobile device associates with a wireless access point of the primary VLAN of the network with use of the primary network identifier.