Patent ID: 7917758

Claim:
A method of authenticating a mobile user to a wireless network using a Transport Layer Security (TLS) tunneling protocol, the method comprising: receiving at a client from a server a request to use a protected extensible authentication protocol for authentication; sending by the client afirst response packet formatted according to the TLS tunneling protocol and the protected extensible authentication protocol to the server, the first response packet providing a user alias to protect the user's identity and for establishing a secure communication tunnel, the first response packet including a session identifier identifying a previous authentication session including a previous user authentication by the server; receiving a second request packet from the with server information for establishing the secure communication tunnel, wherein the second request packet includes information for authenticating the server to the client; transmitting a second response packet to the server, wherein the second response packet establishes the secure communication tunnel; receiving a success packet from the server, the success packet proposing a fast reconnect wherein the fast reconnect uses the previous user authentication to allow the wireless connection to quickly resume services when the mobile user is roaming and connecting to different wireless access points; transmitting a success response packet agreeing to the fast reconnect; and after successful fast reconnect, encrypting subsequent communications using stored keys.