Facilitating active hand-in using out-of-band link at femtocell

Active hand-in refers to the ability for a voice or data connection for a mobile on the macrocell to be seamlessly handed off to the target femtocell. The challenge for active hand-in is that a large number of femtocells share limited PN offsets in a geographical region and hence the target femtocell cannot be identified uniquely by its PN offset. An ideal solution would be one that requires no hardware or software changes to macro network or legacy mobiles. This paper discusses a method of using an out-of-band (OOB) radio integrated with the femtocell to assist in active hand-in by uniquely identifying the target femtocell with the help of OOB link identifiers.