METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PERFORMING HANDOFF BETWEEN SECTORS OF A COMMON BASE STATION

摘要

A method and apparatus providing softer handoff of a mobile unit (90) between sectors (50, 70 and 80) of a common base station (60). A sectorized base station (60) comprises a set of demodulation elements (240A-204N). Each demodulation element (240A-204N) may be assigned to a signal from one of a plurality of sectors. The output of the demodulators (240A-204N) are combined before the decoding process independent of the sector from which the data originated. This configuration provides improved output data reliability, more stable power control, and more efficient use of resources at the base station.