The EAP-GPRS protocol for tight integration of WLANs and 3G cellular networks

In this paper we propose and discuss a new extension of the extensible authentication protocol (EAP), referred to as EAP-GPRS (see also A. Salkintzis, "The EAP-GPRS Protocol"), which allows various types of messages (including UMTS RRC messages and GPRS LLC messages) to be embedded within EAP messages. One of the advantages of this protocol is that it can support signaling procedures embedded within a WLAN access control procedure and therefore facilitate fast handovers in cases when the WLAN is tightly coupled to a 3G cellular network.