Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.16e Handover with RSA-Based Authentication

The Wireless Broadband (Wibro) specified by IEEE 802.16e has gained great popularity in the next generation mobile telecommunication networks. However, as mobility is supported, handover procedure especially the authentication mechanism becomes a critical part in system performance. In this paper, we present an analytical evaluation for MAC layer handover procedure with RSA-based authentication which is a security standard in IEEE 802.16e specification. Our analysis consists of differentiated considerations between mobile subscribers (MS) and base stations (BS) in signaling message transmission, queueing model and computing process for the authentication and key establishment process during handover procedure. We have observed that the major portion of the handover delay is the authentication process due to heavy computing operations. The analysis provides deep insights into the system performance of the handover procedure in a Wibro network.