Patent ID: 7039405

Claim:
A method for controlling a handover in a radio communications system having a multiplicity of transceiver stations, comprising: communicating with a mobile terminal through a first set of transceiver stations, wherein the first set of transceiver stations forms an active set of stations, and adding at least one additional station to the active set of stations during a handover, thereby forming an extended set, the extended set communicating with the mobile terminal and being formed once a need for the handover has been established, wherein a periodic check is carried out among transceiver stations that do not belong to the active set of stations, to determine whether within a handover margin below a highest transmission quality there is at least one candidate station that is suitable as an additional transceiver station for communication with the mobile terminal if a handover is initiated, and wherein if there is no candidate station within the handover margin, the handover margin is extended to include at least one candidate station, which is added to the active set of stations to form the extended set.