fig1 shows the typical cdma cellular communication system components utilizing the invention . referring to fig1 , cell site 1 supports wireless communication with mobile stations ( e . g . cellular phones , laptop computers , palm pilot devices , etc .) within that cell site service area . a base transceiver station ( bts ) 10 provides the radio signal link to the mobile stations on the cell site 1 . cell site 2 supports wireless communication with mobile stations ( e . g . cellular phones , laptop computers , palm pilot devices , etc .) within that cell site service area . a base transceiver station ( bts ) 15 provides the radio signal link to the mobile stations on the cell site 2 . cell site 3 supports wireless communication with mobile stations ( e . g . cellular phones , laptop computers , palm pilot devices , etc .) within that cell site service area . a base transceiver station ( bts ) 20 provides the radio signal link to the mobile stations on the cell site 3 . and cell site 4 supports wireless communication with mobile stations ( e . g . cellular phones , laptop computers , palm pilot devices , etc .) within that cell site service area . a base transceiver station ( bts ) 25 provides the radio signal link to the mobile stations on the cell site 4 . the bts 10 is coupled to the access network / packet control function ( an / pcf ) 35 by communication link 9 . the pcf in this network stores hrpd session related information , assigns the unicast access identifier to the access terminal , performs terminal authentication procedures , and manages the location of the access terminal . the access terminal ( at ) 65 is shown on cell site 2 coupled to bts 15 by wireless radio link 62 . the mobile station is linked to the bts 15 by radio signal 62 . the an / pcf 45 is coupled to the packet data serving node ( pdsn ) 55 by communication link 54 . the communication link 54 can be referred to as the a 10 interface and it carries user traffic between the pcf functionality of an / pcf 45 and the pdsn 55 . the pdsn 55 is in turn coupled to the internet 60 by communication link 59 . the bts 20 is coupled to the an / pcf 50 by communication link 19 . the an / pcf 50 is coupled by communication link 49 to the pdsn 55 . an / pcf 45 and an / pcf 50 are also linked by communication interface 71 , which is also referred to as the a 13 interface , which carries signaling information between the pcf functions , communication interface 72 , also referred to as the ax interface , which carries signaling traffic between an / pcf 35 and an / pcf 50 functions , and interface 73 , the ay interface , which is the bearer path established between the an / pcf 35 and an / pcf 50 carrying the message traffic to and from the at and pdsn . ay interface carries both the signaling traffic needed to establish the connection as well as bearer traffic between an / pcf 35 and an / pcf 50 . the at 65 is also shown in this example as moving across the boundary of cell site 2 to cell site 3 as at 65 ′ along movement path 70 . when the at 65 moves across the cell site boundary between cell site 2 and cell site 3 , its physical connectivity changes from bts 15 to bts 20 . the network must have a mechanism to handoff the at 65 from bts 15 to bts 20 when making this change . in this type of handoff , the source an / pcf 45 allows the at 65 to add a cell under the control of an / pcf 50 to its active set and switch to that cell site and connectivity for routing . a bearer path is required between the source an 45 and the target an 50 to transfer the information packet traffic . finally , there is also a bts 25 coupled to the an / pcf 50 by communication link 24 . fig2 shows the message flow for accomplishing this type of handoff , which can be referred to an inter - an cell selection handoff . in step 105 , the at transmits an information packet ( pilot st ) to the source an with information on the pilot strength for a cell or cells under control of the target an . the pilot strength is the ratio of the pilot power to the total power in the signal bandwidth of the code channels from the bts to the ats on the cell . the pilot strength signal indicates that the at has moved far from the current bts and needs to change connectivity to another cell site with a stronger signal . this message can comprise a route update message . in step 110 , the source an transmits an ax - handoff request message to establish an inter - an handoff with the target an that hosts the same or all of the cells reported by the at in step 105 . the source an locks the session state information record ( ssir ) for the at . the ssir includes the air interface protocol attributes and associated public data which includes the configuration attributes . this message also signals the target an to establish a bearer path communication link between the source an and target an using the ax signaling interface which creates the ay bearer path interface . the ax hand - off request message includes the ssir and cell identifiers for all the cells under control of the target an available for allocating radio resources on both the forward and reverse links to support communication with the at . in step 115 , the target an / pcf establishes ay traffic connections ( e . g . bearer paths ) for all cells for which radio resources can be committed by sending an ay connect message to the source an / pcf . a single ay connect message can be used to establish multiple ay traffic connections , or each ay traffic connection can be established by a separate ay connect message . in step 120 , the source an / pcf responds with an ay connect acknowledge message ( ay connect ack ) to complete the ay connection and establish the bearer paths from the source an / pcf to the identified cells via the target an / pcf . in step 125 , the target an / pcf transmits an ay handoff request acknowledge ( ay handoff ack ) message to the source an / pcf that contains a list of cells at which radio resources were successfully committed on both the forward and reverse links and for which an ay bearer path connection was established . in step 130 , the source an / pcf sends a traffic channel assignment message to the at with the committed resources reported in step 125 . in step 135 , the at transmits the reverse link traffic frames to the source at , and in step 140 the at transmits the reverse link traffic frames to the target an / pcf as the respective cells are available on the at active set . at this point , the at can begin to transmit reverse direction traffic via the target an / pcf . in step 145 , the reverse link traffic frames received at the target an / pcf are transmitted across the ax interface in an ax - reverse traffic message . the ax - reverse traffic message includes a timestamp based on the cdma system time corresponding to the reception of the first bit of the reverse link traffic frame at the channel element of the target bts . this timestamp is used by the source an / pcf to identify the same decoded traffic frame received from multiple btss , providing the source an / pcf the ability to achieve multi - link diversity . in step 150 , the at indicates its intention to switch to a new cell via the data source control ( dsc ) channel . the data source control channel is used by the at to indicate the selected cell on the forward channel to the an / pcf . after the switch , the at only receives forward link traffic frames via the target an / pcf . in step 155 , after the source an / pcf receives a forwarded data packet from the pdsn , it transmits the data packets to the target an / pcf using an ax forward traffic frame . in step 160 , the target an / pcf forwards data packets to the at using forward traffic frames ( e . g . forward data frames ) on the traffic channel or bearer path and indicating completion of the handoff . the established bearer path is thus as follows : fig3 shows message flow for handoff on an inter - an proactive session transfer . in this type of handoff , some triggering mechanism , such as a trigger algorithm , initiates the transfer . this can comprise a route update message indicating that the at is located too far from the source an ap . in step 205 , if no ay connections currently exist , the source an / pcf and target an / pcf establish ay connections ( establish ay connection ) between them and determine that the a 10 interface must be transferred from the source an / pcf to the target an / pcf . in step 210 , the source an / pcf contacts the target an / pcf via the a 13 interface to initiate the process to request the session transfer handoff of the communication session to the target an / pcf with an a 13 session transfer message . the ssir information does not need to be included because it is transferred to the target an / pcf at the time of the establishment of the ay connections . however , if there are no current ay connections between the source an / pcf and target an / pcf , the session state information record ( ssir ) is also transferred at this step . in step 215 , a 10 interface setup procedures ( a 10 setup ) are performed between target an / pcf and pdsn to establish a 8 / a 10 interface connections for the target an / pcf and the pdsn . the a 8 interface connection carries user traffic between the target an / pcf and the pcf functionality on the target an / pcf , while the a 10 interface connection carries user traffic between the target an / pcf and the pdsn . if the pdsn chosen is different from the source pdsn , fast handoffs may be used to delay point - to - point protocol ( ppp ) negotiation between the at and the target pdsn . in step 220 , the stale a 8 / a 10 connections between the source an / pcf and the pdsn are torn down ( a 10 teardown ), and the ssirs are unlocked and the at moved to the target an / pcf . in step 225 , the target an / pcf transmits an a 13 - session transfer ack message to the source an / pcf indicating completion of the session transfer handoff procedures establishing a bearer path from the target an / pcf to the at . this step may occur in parallel with step 220 . in step 230 , the residual data at the source an / pcf is transferred to the target an ( e . g . transfer residual data ) via the respective ay connections . the target an / pcf tags the residual data packets from the source an / pcf , as specified by a route selection protocol ( e . g . such as defined by the tia - 154 standard ), enabling the at to distinguish between the residual source an / pdf packets and packets received at the target an / pcf directly from the pdsn . this marking process is transparent to the ay interface connection . the at communicates only with the target bts to perform this purge . after all the residual data from the source an / pcf has been transferred across the ay interfaces , in step 235 , the source an / pcf transmits an ax - handoff clear message to the target an / pcf to indicate completion of residual data transfer . in step 240 , in response to the ax - handoff clear message received in step 235 , the target an / pcf initiates the release of ay connections ( ay teardown ) corresponding to the at because these ay connections are no longer used . while the invention has been particularly shown and described with respect to preferred embodiments , it will be readily understood that minor changes in the details of the invention may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention . having described the invention ,