Patent ID: 8811291

Claim:
An access terminal, comprising: a communications interface; a storage medium; and a processing circuit coupled to the communications interface and the storage medium, the processing circuit configured to: receive a transmission via the communications interface including a list of base stations to be monitored; determine that a predefined number of consecutive acquisition attempts with a base station have failed, wherein a delay period is employed between each consecutive acquisition attempt, the delay period including: a first duration when a number of base stations in the received list is less than or equal to a predetermined threshold, or when the base station is ranked in a predefined number of top base stations; and a second duration that is greater than the first duration when the number of base stations in the received list is greater than the predetermined threshold, and the base station is not ranked in the predefined number of top base stations; blacklist the base station from subsequent acquisition attempts for a predefined blacklisting period in response to failure of the predefined number of consecutive acquisition attempts, wherein the blacklisting period is longer than the delay period between each consecutive acquisition attempt; and conduct a subsequent acquisition attempt with the base station following the duration of the blacklisting period.