Patent ID: 7702335

Claim:
A method comprising the steps, performed by a wireless device for accessing a wireless network through network base stations, of: (a) selecting a reverse link cost metric from a list of reverse link cost metrics; (b) determining a reverse link cost according to the selected reverse link cost metric; (c) partitioning a plurality of base stations into a plurality of candidate base stations and a plurality of excluded base stations; (d) substituting the plurality of base stations with the candidate base stations thereby reducing the cardinality of the plurality of base stations by the cardinality of the plurality of excluded base stations; (e) selecting a candidate base station from a plurality of the base stations; (f) sending a probe signal at the reverse link cost to the candidate base station; (g) waiting for a response from the candidate base station within a timeout period; and (h) repeating steps (e) to (g) one or more times, selecting a different candidate base station each time until either: each of the plurality of base stations has been sent a probe at least once at substantially the same reverse link cost and corresponding timeout periods have all expired, or a response is received from at least one candidate base station wherein the responding candidate base station is used to provide system access to the wireless network; further comprising the steps of: (k) selecting a forward link quality metric from a list of forward link quality metrics: and (l) biasing the selection of the candidate base station at step (e) toward base stations having a high forward link quality relative to the plurality of base stations according to the selected forward link quality metric; wherein the list of forward-link quality metrics comprises a network subscriber access cost metric.