Airvana is proposing an automatic basestation authentication technology which it claims will make it easier for operators to roll-out femtocells.
The company has teamed with Internet infrastructure services company VeriSign to develop device authentication certificates which can be embedded into the femtocell.
These will be used by operators to authenticate connected devices before allowing access to core networks and services.
“As with other network access technologies, security is of critical importance to the long-term prospects for widespread adoption," said Adam Geller, v-p of PKI solutions at VeriSign.
"Operators need to know that their deployment of femtocells will not compromise their core networks, and subscribers want assurance that their home networks are secure," said Geller.
According to Airvana, these certificates are digital identifiers embedded into a femtocell and can be used to authenticate devices on the operator’s network. Significantly, the certificates can remove the need for passwords or any action from the end user.
“Both operators and subscribers must be confident that femtocell technology is highly secure in order to embrace it fully,” explained Glenn Laxdal, vice president of femtocell product management, Airvana.
"We are tackling one of the last implementation hurdles and will deliver to operators and subscribers femtocell technology that is backed by a recognized leader in security and authentication technology and services,” said Laxdal.
Work is also taking place within the Femto Forum and the 3GPP SA3 security standards group to establish an implementation standard for network authentication for femtocells using a certificate-based model.