PRE-SYNCHRONIZATION HANDOFF MECHANISMS FOR WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

摘要

Handoff is one of the key components in today's cellular networks. Handoff allows the reuse of scarce wireless bandwidth resource from cell to cell, and is critical for the operation of cellular networks. Prior art hard handoff mechanisms have a high connection dropping rate. This invention presents a mechanism for reducing the probability of dropping connections caused by hard-handoff by performing pre-synchronization. In one embodiment, the mobile station first completes synchronization, and optionally resource allocation, with a neighboring cell before dropping the connection in the current cell. This result is shorter interruption during handoff and thus better voice and data quality.