Patent ID: 7457349

Claim:
A remote terminal in a communication system, comprising: a first receiver operative to receive, process, and digitize a received signal to provide samples; a rake receiver coupled to the first receiver and operative to receive and process the samples to provide time measurements indicative of times of arrival of transmissions received at the remote terminal from a plurality of base stations; and a reference oscillator configured to generate a clock signal used by the rake receiver, wherein the rake receiver includes a plurality of finger processors, wherein a first set of one or more finger processors is assigned to a first set of one or more base stations in active communication with the remote terminal, wherein a second set of one or more finger processors is assigned to a second set of one or more base stations not in active communication with the remote tenniiial, wherein finger processors assigned to base stations in the first and second sets are operative to perform the time measurements on the transmissions received from the base stations, and wherein the finger processors perform the time measurements within a time period between updates of the reference oscillator.