Patent ID: 8577378

Claim:
A method that facilitates a beacon-assisted handover from a wireless terminal, comprising: receiving, by a processor, a control message during an active communication with a base station, wherein the active communication is facilitated by a macro network via the base station; scanning a frequency identified in the control message; transmitting a report to the base station, wherein the report includes attributes associated with a beacon detected during the scanning of the frequency, wherein the attributes are based on a frame number of the beacon and a scrambling code of the beacon, and the scrambling code of the beacon corresponds to more than one femto cell; and receiving a command to perform a handover to an identified femto cell when the attributes correspond to an assigned unique identity of the femto cell, wherein the unique identity of the femto cell comprises an identifier selected from a cross product of a set of scrambling codes for femto cells allocated within a femto cell network, a set of scrambling codes for beacons allocated within the femto cell network, and an offset selected from a set of positive integers, and the frame number of the beacon and the scrambling code of the beacon are a function of the assigned unique identity.