Method for determining when a communication device should rate shift or roam in a wireless environment

A method of improving communication performance in a wireless communication system, said wireless communication system having at least one mobile wireless communication device and a plurality of transmitter/receiver sites, each of which has a geographic area, defined as a cell, within which said at least one mobile wireless communication device can communicate with at least one of said transmitter/receiver sites, said method of improving communication performance comprising the steps of:

• obtaining at least one measurement related to connection quality at discrete intervals;
• storing said at least one measurement taken prior to a communication connection failure in at least one data vector, there being said at least one data vector for each rate shift and one for roam;
• and
• determining whether to rate shift or roam based on a functional relationship utilizing current measurements, last data rate, and respective said at least one data vector.

A wireless communication system having at least one mobile wireless communication device and a plurality of transmitter/receiver sites, each of which has a geographic area, defined as a cell, within which said at least one mobile wireless communication device can communicate with at least one of said transmitter/receiver sites, said mobile wireless communication device having a memory and a processor that runs a program stored in said memory, said program comprising the steps of:

• a first step of obtaining at least one measurement related to connection quality at discrete intervals;
• a second step of subjecting said at least one measurement to at least one configurable parameter to create a functional relationship value that is recorded;
• and
• a third step of trending and extrapolating the recorded said functional relationship values to obtain an extrapolated functional relationship value which is used to determine whether to rate shift or roam.

A wireless communication system having at least one mobile wireless communication device and a plurality of transmitter/receiver sites, each of which has a geographic area, defined as a cell, within which said at least one mobile wireless communication device can communicate with at least one of said transmitter/receiver sites, said mobile wireless communication device having a memory and a processor that runs a program stored in said memory, said program comprising the steps of:

• a first step of obtaining at least one measurement related to connection quality at discrete intervals;
• a second step of storing said at least one measurement taken prior to a communication connection failure in at least one data vector, there being said at least one data vector for each rate shift and one for roam;
• and
• a third step of determining whether to rate shift or roam based on a functional relationship utilizing current measurements, last data rate, and respective said at least one data vector.

A storage medium containing program instructions executable by a processor for improving communication performance in a wireless communication system, said program comprising:

• a first step of obtaining at least one measurement related to connection quality at discrete intervals;
• a second step of subjecting said at least one measurement to at least one configurable parameter to create a functional relationship value that is recorded;
• and
• a third step of trending and extrapolating the recorded said functional relationship values to obtain an extrapolated functional relationship value which is used to determine whether to rate shift or roam.

A storage medium containing program instructions executable by a processor for improving communication performance in a wireless communication system, said program comprising:

• a first step of obtaining at least one measurement related to connection quality at discrete intervals;
• a second step of storing said at least one measurement taken prior to a communication connection failure in at least one data vector, there being said at least one data vector for each rate shift and one for roam;
• and
• a third step of determining whether to rate shift or roam based on a functional relationship utilizing current measurements, last data rate, and respective said at least one data vector.