Patent ID: 8121092

Claim:
A method for selecting a low-cost Internet base station (LCIB) to which to instruct a mobile station to handoff, the method comprising: receiving a handoff request from the mobile station, the handoff request indicating that the mobile station is requesting that a first pseudorandom number (PN) offset be added to an active set for the mobile station, the active set comprising one or more macro-network sectors; determining that the first PN offset is associated with an LCIB pilot beacon, and responsively identifying a candidate set of LCIBs, the candidate set consisting of a plurality of LCIBs that are located in the one or more macro-network sectors in the active set; and determining whether the mobile station is an authorized mobile station of exactly one LCIB in the candidate set and, if so, directing the mobile station to handoff to that LCIB, wherein a given mobile station being an authorized mobile station of a given LCIB comprises the given mobile station being permitted by the given LCIB to conduct one or more communication sessions via the given LCIB whether the given LCIB is operating in a restricted mode or in an unrestricted mode.