Fast hard handover scheme and mobile station and base station supporting such scheme

A method for a cellular mobile communications system, comprising the steps of:

• selecting an active set of base stations from a plurality of base stations, wherein each base station in said active set is capable of providing parallel radio links with a mobile station;
• transmitting a packet uplink from the mobile station;
• transmitting, from each of the base stations of the active set to the mobile station, a measure of the quality on the radio uplink made during receipt of said packet;
• selecting one radio base station from the active set of base stations based upon said quality measures;
• transmitting information on the selected base station uplink from the mobile station;
• and,
• forwarding the data packet on a fixed link from the selected radio base station.

A mobile station for use in a cellular communications system, comprising:

• means for transmitting a packet to be received by two or more base stations;
• means for receiving a measure of radio link quality experienced by said base stations during the data packet transmission;
• a posteriori selecting means for selecting, based upon said measures, one of said base stations after said packet has been transmitted from the mobile station;
• or, alternatively, a priori selecting means comprising means for predicting the radio link quality and adapted for selecting one of said base stations based on prediction of said radio link qualities before said packet is transmitted;
• and,
• means for transmitting uplink information on which of the active set base stations that is selected for the packet to be forwarded on a fixed link by the selected base station.