Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Security or fraud prevention
Reexamination Certificate
2011-01-18
2011-01-18
Thier, Michael T (Department: 2617)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Security or fraud prevention
C455S422100, C455S436000
Reexamination Certificate
active
07873352
ABSTRACT:
A fast roaming (handoff) service is provided for a WLAN infrastructure. A given mobile station (STA) obtains a pairwise master key (PMK) when it associates with an access point (AP) in the infrastructure. A neighbor graph identifies prospective APs to which the STA may then roam. At initialization, preferably the neighbor graph is fully-connected (i.e., each AP is assumed to be connected to every other AP). The PMK (obtained by the STA initially) is shared proactively with the neighbor APs as indicated in the neighbor graph. Thus, when the STA roams to a neighbor AP, because the PMK is already available, there is no requirement that the STA initiate a real-time request to an authentication server to re-associate to the new AP. Further, the new AP causes an update to the neighbor graph information implicitly by simply issuing a notification that it is now handling the STA that arrived from the prior AP; in this manner, the prior AP is confirmed as a neighbor, but there is no requirement for any inter-AP dialog before a given neighbor graph is updated. As roaming occurs the neighbor graph is pruned down (to reflect the actual neighbor AP connections) using the implicit notification data.
REFERENCES:
patent: 2003/0224795 (2003-12-01), Wilhoite et al.
patent: 2004/0242228 (2004-12-01), Lee et al.
patent: 2005/0117524 (2005-06-01), Lee et al.
patent: 2005/0254653 (2005-11-01), Potashnik et al.
patent: 2006/0083377 (2006-04-01), Ptasinski
patent: 2006/0133409 (2006-06-01), Prakash et al.
patent: 2008/0049674 (2008-02-01), Cha et al.
Mishra et al., “Pro-active distribution using neighbor graphs,” IEEE Wireless Communications, vol. 11, Feb. 2004.
Mishra et al., “Context caching using neighbor graphs for fast handoffs in a wireless network,” IEEE INFOCOM conference, Hong Kong, Mar. 2004.
Gupta Anil
Nguyen Hien
Sands Roger D.
Stefanski Thomas S.
Trudeau Pierre
Hewlett--Packard Company
Thier Michael T
LandOfFree
Fast roaming in a wireless network using per-STA pairwise... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Fast roaming in a wireless network using per-STA pairwise..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Fast roaming in a wireless network using per-STA pairwise... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2740655