Wireless communication terminal, hand-off method in wireless communication terminal, and wireless communication system

A hand-off method continuing wireless communication by switching a communication channel from a frequency being used at present to another frequency in a wireless communication terminal performing wireless communication with a plurality of base stations, said method including:

• a search request reception step of receiving a search request requesting processing for acquisition of hand-off candidate frequencies;
• a transmission wait step of waiting for the completion of the transmission of a packet being transmitted when a search request is received in the search request reception step during the transmission of the data formed by a plurality of packets;
• an acquisition processing step of temporarily stopping the transmission of subsequent packets after the transmission of the packet being transmitted, in a hard hand-off mode, is completed in the transmission wait step, switching the frequency being used at present to the hand-off candidate frequency after completing the transmission of the packet being transmitted, and performing an acquisition processing;
• and
• restarting the transmission of the subsequent packets that has been temporarily stopped after completing the acquisition processing.

A wireless communication system comprising:

• a plurality of base stations;
• and
• a wireless communication terminal performing wireless communication with the plurality of base stations, wherein
• the wireless communication terminal comprises:
• a communication part selecting one frequency from among a plurality of frequencies capable of transmission/reception of packets and performing wireless communication;
• and
• a control part switching a frequency used by the communication part and executing the wireless communication, and
• the control part
• executes inter-packet search processing controlling the communication part so as to wait for completion of the transmission of a packet being transmitted when the communication part receives a search request requesting processing for acquisition of hand-off candidate frequencies during transmission of data formed by a continuous plurality of packets,
• temporarily stops the transmission of subsequent packets after completing the transmission of the packet being transmitted, in a hard hand-off mode,
• switches the frequency being used at present to a hand-off candidate frequency after completing the transmission of the packet being transmitted,
• performs an acquisition processing, and
• restarts the transmission of the subsequent packets that has been temporarily stopped after completing the acquisition processing.