Rf repeater with delay to improve hard handoff performance

Abstract

An RF repeater having a fixed or adjustable time delay inserted in the reverse path and/or forward path of the RF repeater is used in a first cell for improving hard handoff performance from the first cell to a second cell. Certain factors associated with the CDMA hard hand-off process effectively reduce the coverage area of the first cell, including the round-trip delay (RTD) uncertainty, the time needed to perform the hard hand-off process, and a higher forward link E /N requirement. Use of an RF repeater in accordance with the increases the effective coverage area of the first cell. The delayed signal from the RF repeater also allows the base station to determine the location of the subscriber station thereby identifying the particular adjacent cell to which the subscriber station will be switched (hard hand-off). A collocated base station is no longer required for the hard hand-off process and the utilization of beacons (when the source cell and the destination cell operate at different channel frequencies) is eliminated. The present invention further includes a method of adding a delay, using an RF repeater, to the reverse path and/or forward path signal(s) between a subscriber station and a base station.