A system for communicating data signals using a cellular network, comprising: a plurality of base stations coupled to the cellular network, each base station of the plurality of base stations including means for gathering and transmitting base station overhead information; and a wireless device coupled to the cellular network, the wireless device including: means for conducting a call session with at least one of the plurality of base stations, wherein the wireless device maintains an active base station set that includes a sub-set of the plurality of base stations, wherein the active base station set includes base stations that have a sufficiently strong signal for a future call session; means for instructing the at least one of the plurality of base stations to gather overhead information related to base stations in the active base station set when the call session ends; means for receiving the base station overhead information for each base station in the active base station set from the at least one of the plurality of base stations; means for storing the received base station overhead information; and means for processing the received base station overhead information to determine whether the received base station overhead information is current for one of the plurality of base stations after a call session is completed. a plurality of base stations coupled to the cellular network, each base station of the plurality of base stations including means for gathering and transmitting base station overhead information; and a wireless device coupled to the cellular network, the wireless device including: means for conducting a call session with at least one of the plurality of base stations, wherein the wireless device maintains an active base station set that includes a sub-set of the plurality of base stations, wherein the active base station set includes base stations that have a sufficiently strong signal for a future call session; means for instructing the at least one of the plurality of base stations to gather overhead information related to base stations in the active base station set when the call session ends; means for receiving the base station overhead information for each base station in the active base station set from the at least one of the plurality of base stations; means for storing the received base station overhead information; and means for processing the received base station overhead information to determine whether the received base station overhead information is current for one of the plurality of base stations after a call session is completed. means for conducting a call session with at least one of the plurality of base stations, wherein the wireless device maintains an active base station set that includes a sub-set of the plurality of base stations, wherein the active base station set includes base stations that have a sufficiently strong signal for a future call session; means for instructing the at least one of the plurality of base stations to gather overhead information related to base stations in the active base station set when the call session ends; means for receiving the base station overhead information for each base station in the active base station set from the at least one of the plurality of base stations; means for storing the received base station overhead information; and means for processing the received base station overhead information to determine whether the received base station overhead information is current for one of the plurality of base stations after a call session is completed.