Patent ID: 8301145

Claim:
A method, comprising: in a mobile wireless communication device, detecting a first wireless cell in a wireless communication network associated with the mobile wireless communication device that fails at least one criterion for the first wireless cell in a set of suitability criteria stored in the mobile wireless communication device, the set of suitability criteria including at least one of received power level and received signal quality parameters broadcast in one or more system information blocks by the wireless communication network and stored in the mobile wireless communication device before detecting the first wireless cell fails the at least one criterion; searching for and locating a set of candidate wireless cells with which to associate; measuring at least one received signal metric for each candidate wireless cell in the set of candidate wireless cells; determining whether a candidate wireless cell in the set of candidate wireless cells is the first wireless cell; evaluating whether the candidate wireless cell satisfies one or more criteria for the first wireless cell in the stored set of suitability criteria in the mobile wireless communication device using the measured at least one received signal metric for the candidate wireless cell when the candidate wireless cell is the first wireless cell; and associating the mobile wireless communication device with the candidate wireless cell when the candidate wireless cell is the first wireless cell and satisfies one or more criteria in the stored set of suitability criteria.