Patent ID: 7346352

Claim:
A method of coordinating broadcast parameters between base stations to facilitate autonomous soft handoff by a mobile station, the method comprising: detecting a broadcast parameter coordination event, negotiating, responsive to said broadcast parameter coordination event, with one or more neighbor base stations over a sidehaul link to determine a set of common broadcast parameter settings and a set of soft handoff sectors for a designated broadcast stream, comprising sending a broadcast parameter coordination request message over a sidehaul link to one or more neighbor base stations; receiving a broadcast parameter coordination response message from one or more of the neighbor base stations over said sidehaul link, said broadcast parameter coordination response message from each neighbor base station containing a sector list identifying sectors that the neighbor base station will commit to a soft handoff for the designated broadcast stream; determining negotiated broadcast parameter settings and soft handoff sectors based on said broadcast parameter coordination response messages from the neighbor base stations; and sending a broadcast parameter commit message from a first base station to one or more of the neighbor base stations over the sidehaul link, the broadcast parameter commit message containing the negotiated set of common broadcast parameter settings and a sector list identifying the soft handoff sectors committed to a soft handoff using the common set of broadcast parameter settings.