Methods and apparatuses to perform secure registration of femto access points in operator controlled network

Methods, apparatus, and systems to perform secure registration of a femto access point for trusted access to an operator-controlled network element. Method steps include establishing a security association for at least one said femto access point, making a request using the security association to an operator-controlled network element, which requests a secure registration credential from an authorizing component. The operator-controlled network element constructs a secure registration credential and sends the secure registration credential to the requesting femto access point, thus authorizing trusted access by the requesting femto access point to access operator-controlled network elements. Embodiments include establishing a security association via an IPsec security association received from a security gateway which is within an operator-controlled domain and using an operator-controlled database of IPsec inner addresses. In some embodiments the femto access point conducts message exchanges using one or more IMS protocols and components, including call session control function elements, which elements in turn may authorize a femto access point within the IMS domain, may or access non-IMS network elements for authorization.