An improvement for authentication protocol in third-generation wireless networks

An improvement for the mutual authentication in the third-generation mobile networks is proposed to address the potentially long delay in waiting for authentication vector (AV) when SGSN and HLR/AuC are located far away from each other, or when the two entities are operated by different operators, or when the mobile terminal (MT) call/mobility activity is frequent. In the 3GPP Technical Specification TS33.102, the probability that an action triggering authentication and key agreement (AKA) has to wait for an AV is fixed as high as 20%. Our proposed scheme is able to achieve this probability smaller than 2% with negligible increased signaling overhead and low storage cost.