Mobile WiMAX Authentication Research And Implementation

Being the formal 3G standard, WiMAX becomes the hottest 3G broadband mobile communication, which is only considered the complementation of the last mile broadband access at the early time. There are two versions of WiMAX, fixed WiMAX and mobile WiMAX, and mobile WiMAX has attracted more and more attention for its higher speed and more convenient service. Meanwhile, the security issues in WiMAX become quite important for its interworking with other 3G technologies and interconnection with other heterogeneous networks.Firstly, this paper introduces the background and architecture of mobile WiMAX and analyzes its end-to-end reference model used in interworking with 3G LTE. Then it makes comparison with other wireless networks.Then this paper analyzes the security authentication architecture in WiMAX and EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol) is the core of this architecture. There are many methods of EAP with different emphasis, for example, EAP-SIM is mainly for 2G while the 3G-AKA based EAP-AKA can bring many advantages by combining with mobile WiMAX.Finally, this paper gives detailed explanations of EAP-AKA method, analyzes its username management mechanism, full and fast reauthentication mode and then gives the concrete format of the messages.Since the mobile WiMAX standard is still under improvement and modification, this paper makes some improvement according to its security defects and implements its authentication diagrams under Visual C++.NET.