Patent ID: 8249598

Claim:
A method of facilitating mobile station handoff, the method comprising: receiving into a radio access network, from a mobile station served by the radio access network, a request for handoff of the mobile station, the request carrying an ambiguous parameter that represents two or more sectors; responsive to receiving the request for handoff carrying the ambiguous parameter, (i) identifying a plurality of potential sectors for the requested handoff, wherein identifying the plurality of potential sectors comprises referring to stored data to identify the plurality of potential sectors as sectors that are each represented by the ambiguous parameter, and (ii) transmitting from the radio access network on a first sector of the identified potential sectors a first test probe, and making a first determination of whether the mobile station responds to the first test probe; if the first determination is that the mobile station responds to the first test probe, then directing the mobile station to hand off to the first sector in response to the handoff request; and if the first determination is that the mobile station does not respond to the first test probe, then not directing the mobile station to hand off to the first sector in response to the handoff request.