Ticket based service access for the mobile user

Traditional mechanisms for service access, by mobile hosts across muhiple service domains, rely on the concept of a home location and cross domain authentication using roaming agreements. The reasons for requiring a home location are considered and it is argued that with recent developmenrs in elecn-onic payment schemes an alternative is possible. In an environment with many service providers, a wide range of services, and a diverse user population, roaming agreements based on a home location provide a far from ideal solution. An allernative “homeless” mechanism based on the notion of tickets is proposed. The requirements and impacts of such a scheme are considered. The proposed scheme is described and anaiysed to show robusrness against specific problems. A description of a protogpe implemenration is included, together with ideas for firm-e work.