Patent ID: 8848655

Claim:
A method of handoff of a user equipment from a macrocellular system to a femtocell system, comprising: provisioning the user equipment with a preferred roaming list that includes an entry allocated for the femtocell system that specifies a system identification number and network identification number associated with the femtocell system, the system identification number and network identification number being transmitted by the femtocell on a second carrier frequency that is different than a first carrier frequency used by the macrocellular system; wherein the preferred roaming list specifies the second carrier frequency as associated with the femtocell system; detecting, by the user equipment, the system identification number and network identification number over an air interface; evaluating the preferred roaming list to determine whether the detected system identification number and network identification number match the system identification number and the network identification number associated with the femtocell system; reading a pseudo-noise offset associated with the femtocell system from the preferred roaming list, wherein detecting the system identification number and network identification number comprises switching, at a predefined interval, from the first carrier frequency to the second carrier frequency to attempt detection of the system identification number and the network identification number and detecting the system identification number and network identification number at the pseudo-noise offset; decoding, by the user equipment, the system identification number and the network identification number and determining whether the system identification number and the network identification number is assigned to the femtocell system; comparing, by the user equipment, the system identification number and the network identification number with the preferred roaming list entry to determine if the system identification number and the network identification number match the preferred roaming list entry; and when the system identification number and the network identification number match the preferred roaming list entry, registering the user equipment with the femtocell system; and identifying a service provider prioritized list from the preferred roaming list.