Patent ID: 8792876

Claim:
A method, comprising: defining authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) attributes for an endpoint, the AAA attributes comprising a quality of service (QoS) policy parameter for an R6 interface between a network element and a base station, wherein the network element operates in a WiMAX communications environment and the base station is coupled to the endpoint; receiving at the network element an indication of successful completion of authentication, the indication including the AAA attributes for the endpoint; forwarding a key change directive to the base station to indicate successful completion of authentication; verifying an authentication key to be used for communication with the endpoint; forwarding results of the verifying to the network element; transmitting a path registration request to set up the path between the base station and the network element, wherein the path registration request includes the QoS policy parameter for the R6 interface; communicating one or more packets to the endpoint in accordance with QoS policy parameter, wherein the communicating comprises applying the QoS policy parameter for the R6 interface to endpoint uplink packets at the base station and applying the QoS policy parameter for the R6 interface to endpoint downlink packets at the gateway; and providing a per-service-flow traffic separation for the endpoint such that if a service flow is for voice traffic, it is routed to a low latency network and data traffic is routed to a high latency network.