Future core networks system (FCNS) - a secure signalling protocol stack for the UMTS core network

We present the security features of a novel protocol stack designed for carrying signalling information in the UMTS core network (CN) and more specifically for its packet switched domain. We compare its features with proposed protocols by the Internet and telecommunications community, such as the IPsec and stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) architectures, moving on to analysing FCNS's advantages over these proposals. We evaluate our protocol stack and reveal future work, and other uses of it, in various operating environments.