Robust radio resource control signaling for HSDPA

A signaling method implemented by a mobile station for executing a handover in a mobile communication network, said method comprising:

• sending a signaling message to a radio network controller to initiate a hard handover from a current serving cell to a target cell;
• and
• listening on a downlink channel in both said current serving cell and said target cell for a response message to said signaling message, wherein the response message is bi-cast in both the current serving cell and the target cell.

A non-transitory computer readable medium storing code for controlling a mobile station, said code including:

• code for causing the mobile station to send a signaling message to a radio resource controller to request a hard handover from a current serving cell to a target cell;
• code for causing the mobile station to listen in both said current serving cell and said target cell for a response to said signaling message, wherein the response message is bi-cast in both the current serving cell and the target cell.

A non-transitory computer readable medium storing code for controlling a radio network controller, said code including:

• code for causing the radio network controller to initiate a hard handover of a mobile station from a current serving cell to a target cell responsive to a signaling message from said mobile station;
• code for causing the radio network controller to bi-cast a radio resource control messages to said mobile station through both said current serving cell and said target cell during said handover;
• code for causing the radio network controller to uni-cast user data to said mobile station through the current serving cell during said handover.