The mobility management and authentication/authorization mechanisms in mobile networks beyond 3G

The paper presents the initial results obtained from a theoretical study on mobility management with QoS and authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) issues in an enhanced UMTS-WLAN environment that is the one of the IST European project WINE GLASS (Wireless Ip NEtwork as a Generic platform for Location Aware Service Support). The proposed solution for AAA and QoS mobility management issues aims to exploit the potential of IP-based wireless mobile multimedia networking evolving from 3G towards 4G systems. The main WINE GLASS objective is to exploit and enhance new IP-based techniques to support terminal mobility and soft-guaranteed QoS in a wireless Internet architecture. The proposed framework incorporates both UMTS and WLAN access technologies, enhancing the UMTS backbone in order to support fully an all-IP solution. Moreover, the project has the scope to explore the potential of access technologies in enabling location-aware and QoS-aware application services for wireless mobile users. A wireless Internet testbed is to be developed with the aim of integrating an IPv6 backbone and UTRAN and WLAN access to an IP-based 4G core network. This testbed will be a means to investigate, develop, test, integrate, validate and evaluate innovative techniques and applications.