  Secure access of communication networks has become an increasingly important
area of consideration for the communication service providers of present day.
Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) networks are proving to be an efficient and
cost effective solution for the provisioning of high rate wireless traffic
links in static and mobile domains. The secure access of these networks is
necessary to ensure their superior operation and revenue efficacy. Although
authentication process is a key to secure access in BWA networks, the breaches
present in them limit the networks performance. In this paper, the
vulnerabilities in the authentication frameworks of BWA networks have been
unveiled. Moreover, this paper also describes the limitations of these
protocols and of the solutions proposed to them due to the involved
computational complexities and overheads. The possible attacks on privacy and
performance of BWA networks have been discussed and explained in detail.
