Using a proxy in front of a diameter routing agent

A system for routing Diameter messages in a core network and for authenticating a wireless communication device according to the Diameter messages, comprising:

• at least one network access server configured to:
• send, to a firewall proxy in a first Diameter message, subscription information of the at least one network access server, wherein the subscription information comprises attribute-value pairs (AVP) of the at least one network access server;
• receive, from a communication device, an authentication request;
• and
• send, to a diameter routing agent (DRA) in a second Diameter message, a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection request;
• the firewall proxy coupled to the at least one network access server and configured to:
• generate an access list based on the subscription information, wherein the access list includes a mapping of a source Internet Protocol (IP) address of a corresponding network access server of the at least one network access server to a firewall network address translation (NAT) IP address of the firewall proxy;
• send, to the DRA in a third Diameter message, configuration information for pre-configuring the firewall proxy at the DRA, wherein the configuration information includes the firewall NAT IP address of the firewall proxy;
• and
• send, to the at least one network access server, the access list;
• and
• the DRA coupled to the firewall proxy and configured to:
• pre-configure the firewall proxy based on the configuration information;
• receive, from the at least one network access server, the TCP connection request comprising the firewall NAT IP address in a fourth Diameter message;
• and
• send, to the at least one network access server, an acknowledgement that indicates confirmation of the TCP connection request.

A system for routing Diameter messages in a core network and for authenticating a wireless communication device according to the Diameter messages, comprising:

• at least one network access server configured to:
• send, to a load balancer, subscription information of the at least one network access server in a first Diameter message, wherein the subscription information comprises attribute-value pairs (AVP) of the at least one network access server;
• receive, from a communication device, an authentication request;
• send, to the load balancer, a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection request in a second Diameter message responsive to receiving the authentication request;
• and
• send the authentication request in a third Diameter message to a diameter routing Agent (DRA) for authenticating a subscriber identity module (SIM) card of the communication device for multimedia services of the core network;
• the load balancer coupled to the at least one network access server and to the DRA, wherein the load balancer is configured to send, to the DRA in a fourth Diameter message, configuration information for pre-configuring the load balancer at the DRA;
• and
• the DRA coupled to the load balancer and configured to pre-configure the load balancer based on the configuration information.