Patent ID: 7006473

Claim:
A soft handover method useful in CDMA mobile communication systems, comprising: (a) detecting error frame indication within a channel decoding unit of a mobile unit, (b) determining if a new base station member is in a pilot candidate list when there are detected continuous plural error frame indication; (c) if a new base station is found in accordance with step (b), sending a pilot strength measure message direct and activating a soft handover process; or (d) if a new base station is not found in accordance with step (b), determining whether there is at least one neighbor base station within a pilot neighbor list with a pilot signal strength near a threshold T-ADD value for launching a soft handover process as provided by a network layer; and (e) if at least one neighbor base station is found in accordance with step (d), sending a pilot strength measure message from the mobile station to the base station so as to activate a soft handover process upon receipt of the pilot strength message.