Title: Diminishing signalling traffic for authentication in mobile communication system

Authors: Chi-Chun Lo, Kuen-Liang Sue

Addresses: Institute of Information Management, National Chiao Tung University, 1001 Ta Hsueh Road, 30050 Hsinchu, Taiwan. ' Department of Information Management, National Central University, No. 300 Jung da Road, 320 Chungli, Taiwan

Abstract: In global system for mobile communication, the VLR requests the HLR for assistance in authenticating the visiting user. The authentication centre (AuC) in the home network generates 3-tuples and sends them back to the VLR for subsequent authentications during the user|s residence. If these 3-tuples are used up before the MS|s leaving, another request is issued by the VLR. The request is expensive, because it needs to access the HLR/AuC. Traditionally, a fixed-K strategy is used. That is, K 3-tuples are sent to the VLR for each request. However, much waste of 3-tuples is observed, especially when an inactive user is considered. Hence, we propose a dynamic-K (DK) strategy to reduce the waste and diminish the signalling traffic for authentication. Simulation results show that the DK strategy can effectively determine the appropriate K value. Not only the waste but also the number of requests is diminished efficiently.

Keywords: authentication; HLR; VLR; authentication centre; mobility management; overflow control; mobile communications; signalling traffic reduction.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEB.2004.005142

International Journal of Electronic Business, 2004 Vol.2 No.3, pp.274 - 282

Published online: 04 Sep 2004 *

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