Patent ID: 7634271

Claim:
In a communication system comprising licensed and unlicensed wireless communication systems, wherein the unlicensed wireless communication system comprises an unlicensed network controller for communicatively coupling a mobile station to the licensed wireless communication system, a multi-layer signaling protocol architecture comprising: a multi-layer protocol architecture for the unlicensed network controller comprising a secure layer; and a multi-layer protocol architecture for the mobile station comprising a secure layer for communicating with the unlicensed network controller secure layer, wherein the unlicensed wireless communication system further comprises an access point for communicatively coupling the mobile station and the unlicensed network controller, wherein: a) the unlicensed network controller protocol architecture further comprises: i) access layers for communicating with a broadband network broadband access layers; ii) an Internet Protocol (IP) layer below the secure layer and over the access layers for communicating with a broadband network IP layer; iii) a radio resource (RR) layer over the secure layer; b) the mobile station architecture further comprises: i) unlicensed access layers; ii) an IP layer over the unlicensed access layers and below the secure layer; iii) a RR layer over the secure layer for communicating with the RR layer of the unlicensed network controller; and c) the access point has a multi-layer protocol architecture comprising: i) unlicensed access layers for communicating with the unlicensed access layers of the mobile station; ii) broadband access layers for communicating with the broadband access layers of the broadband network; and iii) an IP layer over the unlicensed layers and the broadband layers for communicating with the IP layer of the mobile station and the broadband network IP layer.