Identity protection in a LAN-universal radiotelephone system

A method for identifying a mobile wireless terminal upon a transition of the terminal from a wireless telephony network to a wireless Local Area Network (LAN), comprising the steps of:

• receiving in the wireless LAN from the mobile wireless terminal identity information previously used by the mobile wireless terminal to access the wireless telephony network;
• identifying a serving node in the wireless telephony network that last served the mobile wireless terminal prior to transitioning to the wireless LAN in accordance with the identity information received from the mobile wireless terminal in the wireless LAN, the identity information identity information including a temporary mobile subscriber identity, a temporary, signature and a routing Identifier;
• forwarding the identity information of the mobile wireless terminal to the last-accessed serving node in the wireless telephony network for identification;
• receiving from the last-accessed serving node in the wireless telephony network an identification response indicating whether the mobile wireless terminal has been properly identified;
• and
• validating the mobile terminal in accordance with the identification response.