NON-ACCESS STRATUM ARCHITECTURE AND PROTOCOL ENHANCEMENTS FOR LONG TERM EVOLUTION MOBILE UNITS

摘要

A method and apparatus performs processing of the non-access stratus (NAS) layer (layer 3) in long term evolution (LTE) wireless transmit/receive units (WTRUs), which allows the NAS protocol layer to route layer 3 messages to the correct NAS entity, and to encode new NAS message types and information elements. A new architecture is presented that enables NAS security. When a NAS message is generated, a determination is made as to whether or not to cipher, de-cipher and/or integrity check the NAS message based on at least one of a protocol discriminator (PD) of the NAS message, an indicator field in a header of the NAS message, the type of the NAS message, a NAS security state variable, and an indication by an upper layer protocol. The NAS security state variable indicates whether NAS security is currently active or not and may comprise one bit.

主权项

1. A method of transmitting a non-access stratum (NAS) message in a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU), the method comprising:
generating a Long Term Evolution (LTE) evolved mobility management (EMM) NAS message or an LTE evolved session management (ESM) NAS message that includes a NAS security state variable in a NAS header; ciphering the NAS message on a condition that the NAS security is active, wherein NAS security is active for the NAS message on a condition that the NAS security state variable has a first value, and wherein the NAS security is not active for the NAS message on a condition that the NAS security state variable has a second value; and transmitting the NAS message.