Patent ID: 8432870

Claim:
A method comprising: transmitting a handover request message from a legacy serving base station to a target updated base station, the request message including an indication that a mobile station is compliant with an updated standard specification of an orthogonal frequency division duplex multiple access (OFDMA) reference system, wherein the legacy serving base station is compliant with a legacy standard specification but not the updated standard specification, and the target updated base station is compliant with both the legacy standard specification and the updated standard specification; and receiving a handover response message at the legacy serving base station from the target updated base station, the handover response message including one or more updated system parameters assigned to the mobile station for an updated time zone of the target updated base station and one or more legacy system parameters, wherein the one or more legacy system parameters are mapped to one or more corresponding updated system parameters by the mobile station or the target updated base station, wherein the time zone is an integer number of consecutive subframes.