Secure tunnel establishment upon attachment or handover to an access network

摘要

The invention relates to a method, mobile node and computer-readable medium for establishing (or pre-establishing) a secure tunnel to an ePDG to prepare for a mobile node attachment or handover to another access network. To reduce the delay of a handover or upon attachment of a mobile node to an access network implied by mechanisms to discover a ePDG, the mobile node maintains a reachability list that can be consulted to identify an ePDG or ePDGs that are reachable in the target access network, i.e. to which the mobile node may establish a secure tunnel. If the mobile node can identify a reachable ePDG for a given access network from the reachability list, the mobile node (pre-)establishes a secure tunnel to the ePDG upon attaching to the given access network. In alternative solutions DNS, DHCP or other mechanism can be used to provide the mobile node with information on ePDGs in its vicinity.