A cellular mobile device comprising: a transmitter and receiver to send and receive cellular communications in the form of radio frequency signals; a microprocessor; a virtual private network, "VPN", network client configured to execute on the microprocessor to establish a secure VPN connection with a remote VPN security device, wherein the VPN network client is configured to process network packets for securely tunneling the network packets between the cellular mobile device and the remote VPN security device, wherein the VPN network client is configured to establish a secure control channel with the secure VPN gateway for the secure VPN connection and, upon a successful authentication, to receive a session cookie with a unique identifier, said cellular mobile device characterised in that: the VPN network client is configured, in the event communication with the secure VPN gateway is temporarily lost, to perform a fast reconnect without requiring re-authentication of the cellular mobile device by communicating the session cookie, which allows the VPN network client to re-establish the VPN connection with secure VPN gateway, to the secure VPN gateway, and the VPN network client is configured, prior to performing the fast reconnect, to identify a set of transport mechanisms currently available to the cellular mobile device and the VPN network client is configured, when only a cellular network is available and not a wireless packet-based connection, to defer the fast reconnect until application-layer data is received from a user application and is ready to be sent to the remote VPN security device via the VPN connection. a transmitter and receiver to send and receive cellular communications in the form of radio frequency signals; a microprocessor; a virtual private network, "VPN", network client configured to execute on the microprocessor to establish a secure VPN connection with a remote VPN security device, wherein the VPN network client is configured to process network packets for securely tunneling the network packets between the cellular mobile device and the remote VPN security device, wherein the VPN network client is configured to establish a secure control channel with the secure VPN gateway for the secure VPN connection and, upon a successful authentication, to receive a session cookie with a unique identifier, said cellular mobile device characterised in that: the VPN network client is configured, in the event communication with the secure VPN gateway is temporarily lost, to perform a fast reconnect without requiring re-authentication of the cellular mobile device by communicating the session cookie, which allows the VPN network client to re-establish the VPN connection with secure VPN gateway, to the secure VPN gateway, and the VPN network client is configured, prior to performing the fast reconnect, to identify a set of transport mechanisms currently available to the cellular mobile device and the VPN network client is configured, when only a cellular network is available and not a wireless packet-based connection, to defer the fast reconnect until application-layer data is received from a user application and is ready to be sent to the remote VPN security device via the VPN connection. the VPN network client is configured, in the event communication with the secure VPN gateway is temporarily lost, to perform a fast reconnect without requiring re-authentication of the cellular mobile device by communicating the session cookie, which allows the VPN network client to re-establish the VPN connection with secure VPN gateway, to the secure VPN gateway, and the VPN network client is configured, prior to performing the fast reconnect, to identify a set of transport mechanisms currently available to the cellular mobile device and the VPN network client is configured, when only a cellular network is available and not a wireless packet-based connection, to defer the fast reconnect until application-layer data is received from a user application and is ready to be sent to the remote VPN security device via the VPN connection.