Patent ID: 7649864

Claim:
A method comprising: collecting measurements from mobile stations; detecting whether a mobile station is in a handover area; if it is detected that the mobile station is in a handover area, determining, on the basis of the collected measurements, maximum allocation periods for at least two possible base stations for transmitting data packets to the mobile station, wherein during the maximum allocation periods packet sending between the mobile station and the possible base stations can be performed without requiring a handover of the mobile station; determining a base station out of the possible base stations on the basis of the determined maximum allocation periods; and selecting the determined base station and a corresponding allocation period; wherein out of the collected measurements slow fading properties of a channel are derived, wherein out of the collected measurements differences between an energy per chip to interference ratio value of the possible base station in question to that of other possible base stations are obtained, and wherein the maximum allocation periods are determined from the slow fading properties and the differences between the energy per chip to interference ratio values.