The IP communications between Femtocell Access Points and the carrier’s core network must be secure – both the authenticity of the communicating peers and the privacy of the data exchanged must be ensured

AuthenTec QuickSec™/IPsec for Femtocell client and server toolkits deliver the industry’s leading IPsec and IKEv2 implementations for fulfilling the security, reliability, and performance requirements mandated by the telecommunications industry and industry standards.
Complete IPsec Security Solution

The QuickSec/IPsec toolkit family provides a complete solution for protecting the IP traffic between deployed Femtocell Access Points (FAP) and the carriers Femtocell Gateway (FGW) to the end user equipment. 

The AuthenTec QuickSec/IPsec Server toolkit for Femtocell is designed to be integrated into security gateways residing on the edge of the operator network. These highly scalable IPsec concentrators perform the IKEv2 authentication and terminate the femtocell connections. This functionality must be built into lu-concentrators, GANCs and Proxy CSCFs.

The source code of AuthenTec’s QuickSec/IPsec Client toolkit for Femtocell is designed specifically to run on FAPs. Whether the architecture requires lu-over-IP, UMA, or IMS, QuickSec/IPsec will provide the IPsec protocol for secure connectivity. QuickSec/IPsec’s ANSI C source code implementation of IPsec and IKE protocols is easily portable to any embedded operating system.

QuickSec/IPsec implements everything needed including IPsec ESP with AES and SHA-1 in tunnel mode, EAP-SIM and EAP-AKA, IKEv2, NAT-T and certificate handling.

The QuickSec/IPsec for Femtocell architecture allows for highly efficient offloading of cryptographic operations to specialized hardware, The toolkit architecture implements a hardware acceleration interface that supports many popular security co-processors in the market, including AuthenTec’s family of SafeXcel IP Packet Engines for Femtocells. This hardware/software system provides system integrators with a complete and proven, easy-to-integrate security offering which reduces development cost and time to market

• High level C function call API for setup and management of IPsec and IKE functionality
• The industry reference IKEv2 implementation
• EAP framework with several methods (EAP-SIM, EAP-AKA, EAP-TLS, EAP-MD5)

• High availability APIs for import and export of IPSec security associations
• IPv4 / IPv6 support

• Linux 2.6 (kernel.org and MontaVista)
• WindRiver VxWorks
• Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista, Mobile, Server)
• Other OS's through portability layer

• SafeXcel-51x0
• AMCC 440 EPx/GRx
• PMC-Sierra MSP 8520
• Cavium Octeon
• Cavium Nitrox
• Various types of crypto HW support (including plain crypto cores, packet engines, inline hardware accelerators, bare-metal fastpaths as well as public key accelerators) 

• Scalability from miniature to massive systems to meet demands from FAP to SGW use
• Predicable code and memory footprint, and deterministic memory allocation
• Cryptographic offload to HW, for greater throughput, massive scalability, and CPU conservation
• A dedicated developer team to provide integration support and security consultancy
• Large existing customer base and wide industry acceptance
• Excellent interoperability and standards compliance

• Reduce development costs and shorten time to market
• Build future-proof solutions through industry-standard and regulatory compliance
• Leverage fully-integrated complete solutions

AuthenTec and the Femto Forum

AuthenTec has been an active member of the Femto Forum since 2008. Comprised of mobile operators, telecoms hardware and software vendors, content providers and innovative start-ups, the Femto Forum’s mission is to drive development and adoption of femtocell products and services as the optimum technology for the provision of high-quality 2G/3G coverage and premium services within the residential and SME markets.  For more information on the Femto Forum click here.