METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR EFFICIENT HANDOFFS BY MOBILE COMMUNICATION ENTITIES

摘要

A method and apparatus used in the context of a digital cellular communication network for allowing a remote unit to determine the conditions under which a handoff should occur and the procedure to be followed. The method and apparatus of the present invention controls handoffs in a manner which causes the boundaries of a cell within a digital cellular network to remain relatively well defined and to very closely conform to the boundaries of a cell of an advanced mobile phone system with which the cellular digital packet data system is associated. The present invention also reduces the effort required by a remote unit within a cellular digital packet data communication system when attempting to change channels. Primary and Secondary Thresholds are defined in accordance with the present invention. These Thresholds aid in determining when a link should be handed off (and thus define the boundaries of cells of the system) and which channels are appropriate candidates to attempt to scan to track a hop or determine when to initiate a handoff. The Thresholds represent performance thresholds which can be used to determine whether the airlink can reliably transmit information.