Artur Hecker

A New Access Control Solution for a Multi-Provider Wireless Environment

The fundamental goal in future 4G mobile multi-service networks is to provide an efficient mobile computing environment. We presume that future terminals will be equipped with multiple heterogeneous wireless interfaces. We want to enable each user to seamlessly move between different providers’ networks. Besides seamless roaming, a key consideration is also devoted to quality-of-service provision. In this article, we propose a model and an architectural framework for supporting quality of service in the context of interconnected multi-provider wireless systems. The proposed integrated COPS-based management and RADIUS-based access control architecture will allow providers to offer multimedia services while optimizing the use of the underlying network resources. We suggest new concepts and protocols to provide solutions to these challenges and describe the French national research project named MMQoS aiming on building such future networks.

A novel authentication model based on secured IP smart cards

An authentication model using secured smart cards implementing IP services is presented. In this model, some authentication functions usually found in the access network are moved inside the smart card. This innovative architecture simplifies current authentication schemes and helps to design new services.

An efficient micromobility implementation for 802.1X WLANs

We analyze the implications of the integration of the current IP micromobility concepts with the 802.1X access control. We show that the independent user location tracking of IP micromobility and 802.1X provokes a significant additional handover delay and signaling load degrading the overall performance. To overcome these difficulties, we propose a system architecture which uses EAP as a general signaling protocol. We then discuss the new opportunities of our approach. Finally, we show that our system architecture can be applied in almost all access networks by exploiting the generality of the 802.1X approach.