Patent ID: 8060095

Claim:
A method for determining whether to handover a mobile station, the method comprising the acts of: comparing signal strength measurements for a first base station to a first handover criteria to produce a first comparison result; comparing signal strength measurements for a second base station to a second handover criteria to produce a second comparison result, wherein the signal strength measurements include a received signal strength indication (RSSI) and signal quality error (SQE); and determining whether to handover the mobile station to the first or second base station based on the first and second comparison results, wherein different first and second handover criteria are employed according to a quality of service level of the mobile station, wherein for a first quality of service level of the mobile station the first handover criteria comprise a first determination of whether a downlink SQE of the first base station is less than a threshold, a second determination of whether a downlink SQE of the second base station is greater than or equal to the downlink SQE of the first base station plus a hysteresis value, the first determination and the second determination combined together and further combined with a third determination of whether an uplink carrier-divided-by-interference-plus-noise value of the second base station is greater than or equal to an intercell floor.