Practical Unified Authentication for 3 G - WLAN Interworking ⋆

3G-WLAN interworking is an emerging technology for the convergence of heterogeneous wireless networks. Solutions to unified authentication using Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) card are urgent demands for wireless network operators, wireless service providers, and mobile users. However, it is a challenging issue to achieve unified authentication based on current network infrastructures. In this paper, we design a unified authentication scheme to address the issue. We implement two authentication mechanisms, i.e., Extensive Authentication Protocol method for UMTS Authentication and Key Agreement (EAP-AKA) and customized Universal Mobile Telecommunications System Authentication and Key Agreement (UMTS-AKA), to achieve the unified secure access to 3G-WLAN interworking networks. The proposed scheme also provides a foundation for unified authentication based on public-key cryptography for the next generation wireless networks. The experiments conducted in our Heterogeneous Advanced Wireless Network (HAWK) test-bed showed that the proposed scheme can achieve the functionalities and security requirements for targeted applications.