A METHOD FOR PERFORMING A SOFT HANDOFF

摘要

The present invention increases the success rate of soft handoffs by enhancing the ability of a mobile-telephone to receive a handoff direction m essage that identifies the traffic channel being assigned to enable a candidate base sta tion to communicate with the mobile-telephone. Specifically, the aforementioned abil ity of the mobile-telephone is enhanced by using the candidate base station to transmit the handoff direction message on a communication channel belonging to the candidate base station and being listened to by the mobile-telehone. In situations where signals tr ansmitted from active set base stations have a low signal-to-noise ratio at the mobile -telephone, signals transmitted from the candidate base station may have a higher signal -to-noise ratio at the mobile-telephone. In these situations, the transmission of the HD messages from the candidate base station increases the likelihood that a copy of the handoff direction message will be successfully received by the mobile-telephone, the rebyenhancing the success rate of soft handoffs.