Patent ID: 8879565

Claim:
A method of initiating a transfer of a communication service used by a communication device for an active call to a new core domain or radio access network in a communication environment including a core network having a plurality of core domains, and a plurality of radio access networks, each of the plurality of radio access networks being associated with at least one of the plurality of core domains, the method comprising: receiving at the core network from the communication device availability information identifying the radio access networks of the plurality of radio access networks which are currently available to the communication device; generating, by the core network, in response to receiving the network availability information from the communication device, network information including information identifying a preferred core domain and a preferred radio access network for the communication device and being based on network based parameters provided by the core network and availability information received from the communication device; identifying, by the core network, if an ongoing communication service needs to be transferred to another core domain or radio access network; and transmitting to the communication device from the core network the network information when the network determines that an ongoing communication service needs to be transferred to another core domain or radio access network, the network information to update the existing network information in the communication device and initiate a transfer of a communication service for the active call to a new core domain or radio access network based on currently transmitted network information.