METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR HANDOFF BETWEEN A WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORK (WLAN) AND A UNIVERSAL MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEM (UMTS)

摘要

Apparatus and method for providing an automatic handoff process of a user equipment (UE) from either a wireless local area network (WLAN) to a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) or from a UMTS to a WLAN. Handoffs may be initiated by the UE, based upon user preference, signal quality, comparison of location coordinates of the UE and the system to be switched to or signal quality. The available channels of one system may be broadcast to the UE by the other system or the UE may monitor channels of the system to be switched to and lock on to one. The handoff may also be initiated by the UMTS, the selection being power-based.