METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR A TARGET-INITIATED HANDOFF FROM A SOURCE CELLULAR WIRELESS NETWORK TO A TARGET NON-CELLULAR WIRELESS NETWORK

摘要

To address the need for an apparatus and method for handoff from a cellular wireless network to a non-cellular wireless network (WLAN, e.g.), the presen t application describes an access gateway (214) and a dual mode mobile station (201) that enable such handoffs. The MS provides information to the access gateway so that it can initiate a handoff with the serving cellular MSC (251 ). By triggering handoffs in this manner, cellular networks need not have speci al information about non-cellular networks to support handoffs. Instead, dual mode MSs can determine when a handoff to a non-cellular network is preferred and request a handin (302) from the non-cellular network.