Patent ID: 7877093

Claim:
A method for performing a handover by a mobile station in a communication system, the method comprising: transmitting a handover request message to a serving base station when it is detected that a handover is necessary; receiving a first handover response message, from the serving base station, including a list of at least one neighbor base station capable of providing a service to the mobile station in response to the handover request message; transmitting a handover indication message including handover rejection information to the serving base station when the mobile station determines to reject the handover after receiving the first handover response message; and receiving a second handover response message, from the serving base station, including a new list of at least one neighbor base station capable of providing the service to the mobile station after transmitting the handover indication message, wherein the handover rejection information indicates the mobile station intends to reject performing the handover with any neighbor base station in the list in the first handover response message, and to receive the new list that is different from the list in the first handover response message; wherein a predetermined handover indicator type field in the handover indication message includes the handover rejection information represented by two bits, which is chosen from among at least three values for the handover indicator type field, each of the three values indicating either a connection release with the serving base station, a handover cancel or the handover rejection information; and wherein the value representing the connection release with the serving base station indicates that the mobile station intends to release a link currently setup with the serving base station, and the value representing the handover cancel indicates that the mobile station intends to cancel the handover and resume communication with the serving base station.