Stoke, the leading security developer for mobile networks, in a statement said that it is critical to protect and encrypt each partner's traffic in a shared LTE network. As the LTE network sharing is on the rise due to market forces and regulators pushing for greater penetration of broadband, Stoke added that DIAMETER-Based Accounting and Policy Management defuses new risks and enables accurate billing.
In addition to regulators mandate to encrypt mobile virtual operator's traffic using IPsec from the shared Radio Access Networks (RAN) to their core networks, Stoke cautined that wholesalers need mechanisms to implement policy enforcement at the common aggregation point in the event that a partner is in violation of the service level agreement.
According to Stoke, the crucial area and first point of defense is at the edge of the RAN, before the traffic passes through the operator's data center. The Stoke security gateway is situated in this natural aggregation spot in the network and also features the ability to provide latency-free traffic security as well as DIAMETER-based inter-carrier accounting and policy enforcement.
"One of the key challenges in completing a network share is the ability to identify and assign relative valuations for each operator's traffic as it is shared or transferred over the network. It is also vital to enable accurate, secure inter-carrier accounting. This requires the creation of charging and policy management mechanisms between sharing partners at a common, clear-text aggregation point, as well as additional security at the border of the radio access network and the LTE operator core. Points of vulnerability are magnified in shared LTE environments, because of factors like operator partners' need to exchange data for subscriber management and billing, differences between carriers' controls and security approaches, and the numbers of remote cell sites that are now part of the mix. Furthermore, since in LTE each cell site may be associated with as many as 16 interfaces into the network core, the mobile access border represents a significant security risk to operators and users."
- Dilip Pillaipakam, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at Stoke
