Seamless and secure mobility management with location-aware service (LAS) broker for future mobile interworking networks

Abstract

The proliferation of wireless local area networks (WLANs) offering high data rate in hot spot area have spurred the demand for possible WLANs and third-generation (3G) cellular network integration solutions as the initiative step towards 4G systems. This paper provides a novel architecture for seamless location-aware integration of WLANs into 3G cellular networks and also an analysis for the efficient handover techniques. We introduce location as a key context in secure roaming mechanism for context-aware interworking in 4G systems. The fast secure roaming with location-aware authentication is implemented at an entity called location-aware service (LAS) broker that utilizes the concepts of direction of user and pre-warming zone. The location-aware interworking architecture supports seamless roaming services among heterogeneous wireless networks including WLANs, wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs), and 3G cellular networks. This paper also includes a description of procedures needed to implement efficient mobility and location management. We show how the LAS broker with pre-warming and context transfer can obtain significant lower latency in the vertical handover.