Patent ID: 8588176

Claim:
A system for performing handover in a Worldwide interoperability for Microwave (WiMAX) mobile communication system supporting broadband wireless access, the system comprising: a plurality of Mobile Stations (MSs); a plurality of distributed antennas configured to perform simultaneous communications with at least one MS of the plurality of MSs; and a base station (BS) connected to at least one distributed antenna of the plurality of distributed antennas through optical fibers for directly performing handovers with each of the plurality of MSs, the base station having a plurality of processing stacks, each stack respectively connected to one of the at least one distributed antenna for performing communications; wherein the mobile station provides to the first base station information regarding at least one potential target distributed antenna, from the plurality of distributed antennas, to which the mobile station plan to communicate with; the base station determines based on the information whether the at least one potential target distributed antenna, of the plurality of distributed antennas, is located in a same service zone of the base station, transmits a handover message directly to a first distributed antenna of at least one potential target distributed antenna located in a same service zone of the same base station when the first distributed antenna of the least one potential target distributed antenna is connected, through the optical fibers, to one of the processing stacks within the same base station, and transmits the handover message to another base station when the first distributed antenna of the at least one potential target distributed antenna is not within the same service zone of the base station, wherein each stack of the plurality of processing stacks have a PHYisical (PHY) layer and a Media Access Control (MAC) layer; and a network access control unit, connected to each of the plurality of processing stacks and to the first network, for connecting and exchanging signals with the plurality of stacks and the first network, and for performing handover.