Patent ID: 8121089

Claim:
A system offering mobile communication services for customers of a carrier operating the system, comprising: mobile stations for use by the carrier's customers; a macro network comprising base stations providing the communication services to the mobile stations in a region; a plurality of femto cells installed in premises of a plurality of the carrier's customers, each femto cell comprising, a base transceiver system (BTS) and a communication interface for providing communication with a network for communications through the BTS, wherein: each BTS is capable of operating on a selected one or more of a plurality of channels, and each BTS is configured to provide at least a pilot on one of the channels designated as a primary channel for femto cell operations in the region of the macro network; and the carrier configures each of the mobile stations to search the primary channel for a signal from a femto cell BTS, to facilitate mobile station network discovery encompassing BTSs of the femto cells or idle handoff of mobile stations from base stations of the macro network to BTSs of the femto cells; each of the mobile stations is configured to search the primary channel by storing data identifying one channel among the plurality designated as the primary channel and system identification information used by the BTSs of the femto cells; the stored data comprises one or more entries in a preferred roaming list (PRL) of the carrier stored in each of the mobile stations for use in selecting a system through a network discovery, for an initial registration upon power-up or a registration after a loss of system signal; the system identification information comprises a system identifier (SID) used by the BTSs of the femto cells and a network identifier (NID) used by the BTSs of the femto cells; the SID used by the BTSs of the femto cells is a SID used by the base stations of the macro network in the region; and the NID used by the BTSs of the femto cells is a NID assigned to the BTSs of the femto cells to be operated in the region.