Secured Roaming Over WLAN and WIMAX Networks

The increase in the usage of the different access technologies lead to a need for new mechanisms to manage interworking and roaming between different network technologies. To fulfill the requirement of users to roam securely along different access networks provided by the different operators, we propose an architecture; Roaming Intermediatory Interworking (RII). In this paper we propose RII architecture as a solution for roaming over Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WIMAX). This paper proposes an intermediatory architecture between the access networks to provide seamless secured access to subscribers of the operators. This paper describes the operational practices, technical architecture and authentication mechanisms to enable a subscriber of one operator to roam securely into the access networks of another operator. A testbed has been setup to demonstrate and evaluate the proposed solution between the WLAN and WIMAX operators networks.