Patent ID: 8135407

Claim:
A method of determining whether a hard handover should be performed of a mobile station in relation to a first group of cells comprising more than one cell and handled by a first cell handling device to a second group of cells comprising at least one cell and handled by a second cell handling device, where there is no direct communication link between the first and second cell handling devices and the first group includes a number of active cells that the mobile station is communicating with, comprising the steps of: obtaining measurements of link quality between the mobile station and all cells of the first group, obtaining measurements of link quality between the mobile station and all cells of the second group, determining a first total quality factor for the first group based on link quality measurements, determining a second total quality factor for the second group based on link quality measurements, performing an evaluation of a preferred group involving comparing the first total quality factor with the second quality factor, and initiating a handover from the first group to the second group in case the second group is preferred.