Wireless communications approach

A method for providing communications between mobile stations, the method comprising the steps of:

• selecting a first portion of a radio frequency (RF) band to carry communications between a first mobile station and a second mobile station;
• the first mobile station transmitting a first request signal on a first sub-portion of the first portion of the RF band directly to the second mobile station to request a communication session between the first mobile station and the second mobile station;
• the first mobile station receiving a first acknowledge signal directly from the second mobile station on a second sub-portion of the first portion of the RF band to acknowledge the first request signal;
• establishing, in response to receiving the first acknowledge signal, a direct communication session between the first mobile station and the second mobile station on the first portion of the RF band;
• the first mobile station receiving from the second mobile station a public encryption key generated using a private encryption key associated with the second mobile station;
• the first mobile station generating a message containing a common encryption key (Ckey);
• the first mobile station encrypting the message using the public encryption key to generate an encrypted message;
• and
• the first mobile station providing the encrypted message to the second mobile station so that the second mobile station may decrypt the encrypted message using the private encryption key and extract the Ckey;
• wherein, messages exchanged between the first and second mobile stations are encrypted using the Ckey.