Securing multimedia services over satellite ATM networks

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in interconnecting satellite and ATM networks because both share common characteristics of the ability to provide bandwidth-on-demand and flexibility of integrating voice, video and data services. There are several new satellite constellation proposals that support multimedia service and transport ATM traffic. For a successful implementation of such systems, it is essential to address the security requirements of users, satellite ATM network operators and multimedia service providers. In order to minimise delay and the cost of implementing security systems for satellite ATM networks, the network operator role (in security services) can be limited to the mutual authentication with satellite users during call set-up periods.