Patent ID: 8442529

Claim:
A method of making handoff determinations in an access terminal, the method comprising: receiving a plurality of indicators, each indicator corresponding to a different attachment point in a plurality of attachment points, each indicator indicating a fraction of communications resources available at said corresponding attachment point not utilized for QoS service; determining whether said access terminal is operating in a best effort mode of data traffic operation or operating in a QoS mode of data traffic operation; and making a handoff decision based on received indicators corresponding to different attachment points, said step of making a handoff decision including: while operating in the QoS mode of data traffic operation: i) identifying a set of attachment points which can provide connections satisfying QoS requirements of the access terminal; and ii) selecting a connection with an attachment point from the set of identified attachment points; and while operating in said best effort mode of data traffic operation making a first handoff decision including: selecting a connection having the greatest potential best effort capacity.