Directional handover control in digital mobile radio systems employing MAHO

摘要

A method of selecting handover targets for a communication unit exchanging a communicated signal through a serving base site in a digital cellular system. The method uses timing advance to determine a relative distance of a communication unit to the serving base site. The method comprising the steps of comparing a timing advance value with a first threshold. The first threshold may be equal to a distance one and one-half times the radius of the serving cell. When the timing advance value exceeds the first threshold, a base site frequency list is modified to include base sites non-adjacent the serving base site. The identity of the non-adjacent base sites may be determined from the directionality of the communication unit. The method further includes the step of selecting a handover target providing a highest relative RSSI value to the communication unit from the modified base site frequency list.