US Patent 7593730 System selection and acquisition for WWAN and WLAN systems

A preferred roaming list (PRL) carries system and acquisition records for wireless wide area network (WWAN) systems and wireless local area network (WLAN) systems. New system and acquisition records may be defined for WLAN. The PRL and system and acquisition records may be defined to be backward compatible with TIA-683-C. System and acquisition information for WLAN systems may be stored in the new system and acquisition records, respectively. Information used to perform encryption and/or authentication for WLAN systems may be stored in a separate WLAN authentication profile table. The system record for each WLAN system indicates a acquisition record and a profile record for that WLAN system. A network identifier table may also carry system records and profile records for WLAN systems. The system records carry information used for WLAN system selection and acquisition. The profile records carry information used to perform encryption and/or authentication for WLAN systems.