Patent ID: 7620017

Claim:
A method to facilitate hard handoff of an access terminal (AT) between a source High Rate Packet Data (HRPD) access network (AN) and a target HRPD AN, the method comprising: supporting, by the source AN, an active HRPD packet data session of the AT; determining, by the source AN while continuing to support the active session, that the AT should handoff to the target AN; sending, by the source AN after determining that the AT should handoff and while continuing to support the active session, a handoff request for the AT to the target AN; receiving, by the source AN from the target AN, a handoff request acknowledgment that indicates that the handoff request was accented by the target AN, wherein the handoff request acknowledgment comprises handoff-related information from the group consisting of a mobile node identifier of the AT, a handoff target sector identifier, and at least a portion of a traffic channel assignment message to be sent to the AT; sending by the source AN to a source BCE a disconnect message sending, by the source AN to the AT, traffic channel assignment signaling that assigns a new active set, supported at least in part by the target AN, to the AT to enable the AT to handoff without the HRPD packet data session transitioning to a dormant mode or dropping, wherein determining that the AT should handoff comprises receiving, by the source AN from the AT, a route update message.