Network Support Modeling, Architecture, and Security Considerations for Composite Reconfigurable Environments

Emerging radio access technologies such as wireless personal and metropolitan area networks and digital broadcasting are a new era for wireless communications. These standards aim at complementing existing cellular/Wi-Fi networks in order to offer a wide range of available access modes to mobile terminals. Multiradio wireless systems referred to as composite radio access networks, bear diverse capabilities, with the optimal radio being invoked to perform a specific set of functions. Composite reconfigurable radio networks support the collaboration of a wide range of heterogeneous radio access technologies under a single or multiple administrative boundaries, adding further intelligence to the way devices attach to and switch between networks spatially and temporally. The EU End-to-End Reconfigurability (ER) research project envisages composite reconfigurable radio networks coupled with legacy as well as evolved core network architectures, yielding simpler and flexible configurations for reduced latencies, autonomic operation, and adaptive functionality. This article presents a cohesive model for controlling and managing such networks, elaborates on the constituent functional entities, and maps this model to two-tier network support architecture. Finally, key security issues for software download over reconfigurable radios and systems are identified and solutions for software certification and authorization as well as for the authentication of roaming terminals are proposed