Patent ID: 8369259

Claim:
A network handover method, comprising: determining, by a user terminal, a target network access point (AP), and acquiring a tunnel destination address; establishing a signaling transmission tunnel between the user terminal and the target network AP through a current network according to the tunnel destination address; and executing, by the user terminal, a network access operation with the target network AP through the signaling transmission tunnel, wherein the tunnel destination address is an IP address of a signaling forwarding entity, and the establishing the signaling transmission tunnel between the user terminal and the target network AP through the current network according to the tunnel destination address comprises either of the two processes: establishing, by the user terminal, a first signaling transmission tunnel with the signaling forwarding entity through the current network; receiving, by the signaling forwarding entity, an air interface packet sent by the user terminal through the first signaling transmission tunnel; and determining, by the signaling forwarding entity, an existing second signaling transmission tunnel with the target network AP; or establishing, by the user terminal, a first signaling transmission tunnel with the signaling forwarding entity through the current network; receiving, by the signaling forwarding entity, an air interface packet sent by the user terminal through the first signaling transmission tunnel; querying, by the signaling forwarding entity, a second tunnel destination address according to the MAC address or the identification information of the target network AP in the air interface packet, wherein the second tunnel destination address is an IP address of the target network AP, and establishing, by the signaling forwarding entity, a second signaling transmission tunnel with the target network AP.