Title: Automated secured handoff delay reduction by minimising authentication cost in mobile WiMAX network entry process

Authors: B. Sridevi; S. Rajaram

Addresses: Department of Electronics and Communication, Velammal College of Engineering and Technology, Viraganoor, Madurai, Tamilnadu, India ' Department of Electronics and Communication, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract: Augmentation of WiMAX is incredible because of its substantial bandwidth and high speed over large distances. But the crucial challenge it faces is handoff delay, which is considered to be the key factor in the present scenario. Handling the authorised user to avoid security threats plays a vital role in handoff which in turn increases the handoff delay. Equalising the significance of both authentication and handoff, an adaptation is required to reduce the authentication cost without security compromise. This paper proposes three different mechanisms to automatically reduce authentication cost during handoff depending upon its users and hence enhances the mobility of users. The automation technique proposes three types of key caching which is suitable for users frequently moving to the already visited base station (BS) and it saves maximum of 58.64% of authentication cost. Further, it is dedicated for ping-pong users travelling in the border and moves between two BSs repeatedly which minimises authentication cost up to 88.57% and a controlled architecture in which users can be authenticated prior to their handoff to BS saving 69.25% authentication cost. Simulation results show the contribution of the proposed methods in the reduction of handoff delay.

Keywords: mobile WiMAX; authentication cost; handoff delay; ping-pong calls; key caching; pre-authentication; automated handoff; secured handoff; delay reduction; network entry; simulation; network security.

DOI: 10.1504/IJITM.2015.066058

International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2015 Vol.14 No.1, pp.43 - 59

Received: 19 Jan 2013
Accepted: 03 Sep 2013

Published online: 09 May 2015 *

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