DISTRIBUTION OF AN AUTHENTICATION FUNCTION IN A MOBILE NETWORK

摘要

The invention comprises authenticating a mobile terminal in a packet transmission mobile network including an access network for authenticating said mobile terminal and an access point to said access network. A counter indicating the number of authentication requests already received is managed. An authentication request from the mobile terminal is received (21) at the access network, and the counter is incremented (2) by a value equal to 1. The mobile terminal is then authenticated (24), the number indicated by the counter is compared (23) with a threshold value and, based on said comparison, the authenticated mobile terminal is enabled to assume the role of the access network for authenticating another mobile terminal.