 - In a cellular telephone network, handoff is the transition for any given user of signal transmission from one base station to a geographically adjacent base station as the user moves around. In an ideal cellular telephone network, each end user's telephone set or modem (thesubscriber's hardware) is always within range of a base station. The region coveredby each base station is known as its cell. The size and shape of each cell in anetwork depends on the nature of the terrain in the region, the number of base stations,and the transmit/receive range of each base station. In theory, the cells in anetwork overlap; for much of the time, a subscriber's hardware is within range of morethan one base station. The network must decide, from moment to moment, which basestation will handle the signals to and from each and every subscriber's hardware.Each time a mobile or portable cellular subscriber passes from one cellinto another, the network automatically switches coverage responsibility from one basestation to another. Each base-station transition, as well as the switching processor sequence itself, is called handoff. In a properly functioning network, handoffoccurs smoothly, without gaps in communications and without confusion about which basestation should be dealing with the subscriber. Subscribers to a network need not doanything to make handoff take place, nor should they have to think about the process orabout which base station is dealing with the signals at any given moment.
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Learn more about Cell Phones and Cellular Technology |
| Cellular bill management: Setting attainable objectives: Daniel Taylor discusses some realistic internal objectives for those charged with getting corporate cellular purchasing under control. |
| Cellular bill consolidation: Making the most of managed mobility: Cellular bill consolidation can provide companies with low-overhead cellular management approaches that deliver predictable costs. |
| Cellular broadband is mobile and reliable: Cellular broadband is available from most of the major carriers now and in this guest column, John Shelper says it's reliable, available and relatively cheap. |
| Dual-mode Wi-Fi and cellular phones to grow: Dual-mode Wi-Fi and cellular VoIP phones are poised for huge growth, while mobile and single-mode phone sales continue to climb. |
| Mobile Radio Systems: This chapter is an intro to the various mobile radio systems. It provides a foundation for comparing competing mobile radio access systems for supporting mobile broadband services. |
| Cost-effective mobile connectivity: As companies facing mounting mobile connectivity costs you need to make sense of the available mobile connectivity options and reduce costs before they get out of control. |
| FCC releases list of 700MHz spectrum auction bidders: As the auction approaches, the FCC releases the list of bidders for rights to the 700MHz wireless spectrum. |
| Wireless carriers: The good, the bad, and the just plain annoying: It's not unusual for customers dealing with their wireless carriers to get bad service, but in his latest editorial Adama Brown recounts an especially bad example. |
| Managed mobile services: This managed mobile services series, examines services for device management, email, enterprise applications, and cellular telephony. It concludes with a best practices guide. |
| LAST UPDATED: |
25 Sep 2003
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