4.9. Automated Neighbor Planning

The ability to maintain voice calls or packet sessions when moving from the coverage area of one cell to another has been one of the most fundamental enabling features of mobile communication networks. This feature, generally known as Handover (HO) or handoff, is transparent to the user, who remains unaware of serving cell changes during the call. Regardless of technology, the HO procedure is driven by mobile station measurements of received signal levels from candidate and serving cells, as well as optional cell traffic measurements from base stations. These measurements are processed, for example, in the BSC in GSM and the RNC in UMTS to ensure that mobile terminals are always served by cells offering the best possible quality and to ens....