Patent ID: 8666416

Claim:
A mobile communication system comprising: an upper node apparatus; a plurality of base station apparatuses connected to the upper node apparatus; and a mobile station apparatus capable of connecting via radio to any one of the plurality of base station apparatuses, wherein the mobile station apparatus measures at predetermined intervals of time the quality of a signal received from each of the plurality of base station apparatuses and, each time the quality of the received signal is measured, transmits signal reception quality information indicating the quality of the signal received from each base station apparatus to a first base station apparatus of the plurality of base station apparatuses that is currently connected via radio to the mobile station apparatus, and after a predetermined period of time has elapsed from the time at which the signal reception quality for the first base station apparatus dropped to or below a first handover threshold, if the quality of the signal received from a second base station apparatus of the plurality of base station apparatuses that is different from the first base station apparatus becomes equal to or higher than a second handover threshold, the first base station apparatus executes a handover to switch the radio connection of the mobile station apparatus from the first base station apparatus to the second base station apparatus, and wherein a communication area of the first base station apparatus and a communication area of the second base station do not overlap each other and, as the distance between the first base station apparatus and the second base station apparatus is increased, the predetermined period of time is increased.