An authentication scheme for QoS-aware multi-operator maintained wireless mesh networks

In this paper, we consider QoS aware mesh networks that are maintained by multiple operators and they cooperate in the provision of networking services to the mesh clients. In order to support mobile users and seamless handover between the access points, the authentication delay has to be reduced. Many proposed fast authentication schemes rely on trust models that are not appropriate in multi-operator environment. Here, we propose two certificate based authentication schemes such that the authentication is performed locally between the access point and the mesh client. We consider both powerful and constraint mesh clients and we propose certificate sets to decrease the authentication latency. We compare our proof-of-concept implementation to current widely used authentication methods like EAP-TLS, and we conclude that our proposed authentication scheme is considerably faster in all considered scenarios.