Patent ID: 7212821

Claim:
A method of operating a mobile communications device to implement a handoff of a mobile communications device between a first network attachment point and a second network attachment point, said mobile communications device having a first wireless communications link with the first network attachment point at the time said handoff is initiated, said first wireless communication link using signals in a first frequency band, the method comprising: communicating to said second network attachment point, via a first signal communicated over said first wireless communications link, an intent to initiate a handoff to said second network attachment point, wherein said first communications link corresponds to a first frequency band and said second communications link corresponds to a second frequency band which does not use frequencies in said first communications band; receiving, via said first wireless communications link, information indicating a dedicated air link resource assigned to said mobile device by said second network attachment point to be used in communicating with said second network attachment point over a second frequency band which is different from said first frequency band; terminating said first wireless communications link; using said dedicated communications resource to transmit a signal over the air in said second frequency band to establish a second wireless communications link with said second network attachment point; determining second network attachment point timing information from a transmitter information signal transmitted by said second network attachment point into said first frequency band; and wherein said terminating of said first communications link is performed at a time determined by said mobile communications device as a function of the time said transmitter information signal was received from said second network attachment point determining from said beacon signal at least one of a cell identifier and a sector identifier; and determining, from stored information corresponding to the determined cell or sector identifier information, information about the structure of a communications segment used for registration signaling at the second network attachment point, wherein said information about the structure of a communication segment includes information about tones in said segment which are to be used on a contention free basis for mobile device registration signaling, wherein said dedicated resource assigned to said mobile node is a set of tones in an uplink communications segment, said mobile communications device identifying the set of tones from information received from said second network point of attachment via said communications link and form said information about the structure of a communication segment.