Patent ID: 8830954

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a broadband wireless network mobile station, the mobile station arranged to obtain an IP address of a WiMAX signaling forward function in a WiMAX network, to establish a secure tunnel through a non-WiMAX wireless network and an IP core network to the WiMAX signaling forward function in the WiMAX network using the IP address of the WiMAX signaling forward function and to tunnel IEEE 802.16 MAC layer messages directly to the WiMAX signaling forward function in the WiMAX network from the non-WiMAX wireless network and over the IP core network via an R9 interface and by encapsulating the IEEE 802.16 MAC layer messages using an R9 protocol header while maintaining access to IP services through the IP core network using the IP address allocated by the non-WiMAX wireless network.