A pre-authentication architecture in WiFi&WiMAX integrated system

Integrated WiFi and WiMAX network is of great potential for the future due to the high data transport capacity of WiFi and the wider coverage of WiMAX. Under an integrated architecture, a mobile station (MS) with dual-interface should be able to seamlessly roam between WiFi and WiMAX networks. In addition to network handover, a proper security model is recognized as a key issue for such a heterogeneous network. In this paper, a pre-authentication architecture, based on the EAP-TLS protocol, is proposed to provide mutual authentication in WiFi/WiMAX hybrid network. The proposed authentication procedure can be divided into two stages: pre-authentication and re-authentication. By the utilization of pre-authentication, the authentication delay can be significantly reduced when a MS roams between WiFi and WiMAX networks.