An Efficient EAP-Based Pre-Authentication Scheme for Handovers in WRANs over TVWS.

A whole extensible authentication protocol (EAP)-based authentication scheme is time-consuming due to the operations of public key cryptography and validation of certificates which is unacceptable for the wireless regional area networks (WRANs) handover. In this paper, an EAP-based pre-authentication scheme for WRANs handover (EPH) over TV white space is proposed. By applying the proposed pre-authentication scheme, the customer premises equipment and the target secondary user base station can accomplish a seamless handover using a symmetric key. Approved by the logic derivation by Burrows, Abadi, and Needham (BAN) logic, we conclude that the proposed EPH scheme can obtain mutual authentication and hold key secrecy. Additionally, the performance of the EPH scheme has been investigated by simulation experiments with the results showing that the EPH scheme is much more efficient in terms of lower computation delay required than the security scheme regulated in IEEE 802.22 standard.