Patent ID: 8811910

Claim:
A method for executing a handover procedure in a mobile station in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: receiving, by a medium access control (MAC) layer from a Network Control Management System (“NCMS”), a handover request primitive to request transmission of a mobility handover request message to a serving base station, wherein the NCMS is configured to deliver primitives through a service access point (SAP) interface which interfaces the NCMS and a logical management entity located in an upper layer of the mobile station, the logical management entity configured to perform management or control of the mobile station, transmitting the mobility handover request message to the serving base station; receiving a mobility handover response message from the serving base station; and transferring, by a medium access control (MAC) layer to the NCMS, a handover response primitive responsive to the handover request primitive, wherein the SAP interface is either a control SAP interface that is responsible for handling functions comprising handovers, mobility management, session management and radio resource management, or the SAP interface is a management SAP interface that is responsible for handling functions comprising system configuration, monitoring statistics and provision of notifications and triggers.