Patent ID: 8681638

Claim:
A method of operating a communication system, the method comprising: exchanging initial communications between a wireless communication device and a communication network over a wireless connection between the wireless communication device and a network access system and over a network connection between the wireless device and the communication network; discovering the network access system after a loss of the network connection due to a deterioration of the wireless connection between the wireless communication device and the network access system, wherein the wireless device checks a state of a context flag stored in memory after the loss of the network connection due to the deterioration of the wireless device; determining at the wireless device a type of network entry process required to regain the network connection based on the context flag stored in memory, wherein the context flag is indicative of whether context information was maintained during the deterioration of the wireless connection between the wireless communication device and the network access system; initiating at the wireless communication device a network entry process with the network access system based on the context flag to re-establish the network connection where the initiated network entry process is selected from a full network entry process, a partial network entry process, and a full network re-entry process, wherein all network entry steps are required to re-establish the network connection during the full network entry process, some network entry steps are required and some network entry steps are skipped to re-establish the network connection during the partial network entry process, and none of the network entry steps are required to re-establish the network connection during the full network re-entry process; exchanging new communications between the wireless communication device and the communication network over the wireless connection and the network connection after the network connection is re-established.