Patent ID: 7193981

Claim:
A method of processing soft handoff information at a base station, comprising: receiving, at the base station, soft handoff information of a mobile station, the soft handoff information indicating at least a number of base stations in an active list of the mobile station, the active list being a list of base stations involved in a call of the mobile station; applying a rules set to the soft handoff information to determine changes in the active list, the rules set requiring more stringent conditions be met to add a base station to the active list when the active list includes a first number of base stations as compared to when the active list includes a second number of base stations, the first number being greater than the second number; and sending determination results to the mobile station; and wherein the applying step applies the rules set to base stations in a potentials list, the potentials list being a list of base stations which are potential base stations for the active list, and swaps a potential base station from the potentials list with a base station in the active list if the active list is full and the potential base station has a signal strength a threshold greater than a signal strength of the base station in the active list.