Distributed Authentication for Low-Cost Wireless Networks

Sridhar Machiraju, Hao Chen, and Jean Bolot

Cost is one of the key challenges facing the deployment of wireless
networks.  Though 802.11-based networks have shown that costly,
licensed spectrum is not always necessary, the costs of other
components especially backhaul and network equipment continue to
impede the growth of mobile wireless networks. In this paper, we
provide some insights into how such costs can be reduced by designing
a novel, low-cost authentication infrastructure for wireless
networks. Our authentication scheme relies on base stations to
collectively store authentication information.  Thus, it eliminates
the need to maintain costly infrastructure required by the traditional
centralized scheme. Moreover, our scheme is optimized for
mobility-induced handover "re-authentication" and, hence, reduces the
authentication overhead.