Authentication Optimization for Seamless Handovers

In a cellular network, the mobile nodes frequently change their points of attachment to the network in order to keep a suitable radio link quality. In order to recover network connectivity after such change, referred to as handover, the mobile nodes need to carry out some procedures such as point of attachment discovery and selection, IP configuration, authentication and authorization, and location update. In this paper we focus on the authentication and authorization procedures for the mobile nodes. We consider the newly developed IETF architecture for authentication based on the Protocol for carrying authentication for network access (PANA) and the extensible authentication protocol (EAP). We outline how handovers are handled in this architecture and analyze two proposed optimizations that aims in reducing the authentication and authorization latency: pre- authentication and context-transfer based re-authentication.