Patent ID: 7469142

Claim:
A method for performing a handoff of a wireless mobile station from an anchor BTS to a target BTS, the method carried out in a wireless network, wherein the wireless network is one of an interconnected plurality of wireless networks, each of said plurality of wireless networks operating with a wireless protocol for communications with mobile stations, each of said plurality of wireless networks also including a plurality of wireless cells for providing communications to said mobile stations, each of said plurality of wireless networks also including signaling, voice, and data traffic links that enable network communications with base transceiver stations; with at least one wireless network in said plurality of wireless networks further: providing signaling, voice, and data traffic links using a wired-packet protocol; interconnecting at least one of the voice and data traffic links using the wired-packet protocol with at least one of the voice and data traffic links of one or more wireless networks; interconnecting via an interworking unit, signaling traffic links using the wired-packet protocol with the signaling traffic links of one or more wireless networks; interfacing the wireless protocol and the wired-packet protocol whereby base transceiver stations communicate with mobile stations using the wireless protocol and use the wired-packet protocol to enable handover of mobile stations from one of said plurality of wireless cells to another one of said plurality of wireless cells; and controlling the handover of mobile stations from one of said plurality of wireless cells to another one of said plurality of wireless cells, the handover being further controlled by the steps of: identifying the target BTS using measurement data from the mobile station; issuing a request message to the target BTS to request that the target BTS allocate resources at the target BTS to accommodate the mobile station; and instructing the mobile station to handoff to the target BTS.