Patent ID: 8891489

Claim:
A method for facilitating handover in a wireless system, the method comprising: receiving at a serving base station a set of uplink (UL) channel quality metrics through a backhaul communication interface from a target base station, wherein the backhaul communication interface provides for point-to-point communication between the serving base station and the target base station; generating a second UL channel quality metric based on a measurement of an UL sounding reference signal (SRS) indicating a path loss associated with attenuation of radiation conveyed in an UL channel when a handoff fitness score associated with the target base station is above a threshold, wherein the handover fitness score is based at least in part on a differential channel quality amongst the target base station and the serving base station; receiving a set of downlink channel conditions; and determining whether to grant or deny a handoff based at least in part on the set of UL channel quality metrics, the second UL channel quality metric, and the set of downlink channel conditions.