Patent ID: 8059615

Claim:
A method comprising: maintaining a source-access-node-supported set of one or more personalities supported by a source access node, wherein the source-access-node-supported set comprises a personality 0; receiving from an access terminal an access-terminal-supported set of one or more personalities supported by the access terminal, wherein the access-terminal-supported set comprises personality 0; and responsive to receiving the access-terminal-supported set, negotiating a session-specific set of one or more personalities with the access terminal for use by the access terminal during a session, the session-specific set consisting of personality 0 and a first personality, wherein the first personality is not personality 0, and wherein the first personality is a highest-numbered personality in the intersection of the source-access-node-supported set and the access-terminal-supported set, the method further comprising: the access terminal conducting a packet flow according to the first personality; the access terminal handing off during the packet flow to a target access node, wherein handing off comprises switching to communicating according to personality 0; and after a termination of the packet flow, the access terminal conducting a personality negotiation with the target access node.