Wireless communications handoff method and system employing such

1. A method for reducing a delay in a wireless communications system resulting from a handoff while mitigating a risk of premature termination of wireless communications, said method comprising:

identifying a plurality of communications sectors, each of said sectors having a geographic relationship with respect to each other of said sectors;

automatically selecting two of said sectors based upon said geographic relationship, wherein a number of handoffs between the selected sectors exceeds a threshold;

automatically determining a wireless communications timing delay for said selected sectors;

automatically estimating a signal delay for said selected sectors; and

recommending a search window associated with the selected sectors in response to determining that the estimated signal delay exceeds a predetermined signal delay.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein recommending a search window further comprises summing said determined timing delay and said estimated signal delay.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising comparing said summed timing and signal delays to predetermined criteria.

4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising using at least one reduction factor to reduce said summed delays.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein said reduction factor is at least partially based upon a geographic topography.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein said reduction factor is at least partially based upon a layout of at least some of said plurality of sectors.

7. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with instructions for recommending a search window setting, the instructions being operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

identifying a reference sector and a target sector that together comprise a sector pairing associated with a wireless communications system, wherein a number of handoffs associated with the sector pairing exceeds a threshold;

determining, for the sector pairing, a search window based on a timing delay and an estimated signal delay associated with the sector pairing;

generating a reduction factor; and

recommending a reduced search window based on the determined search window and the reduction factor.

8. The computer readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the target sector represents a sector in the wireless communications system having a greatest distance from the reference sector for which the number of handoffs associated with the resulting sector pairing exceeds the threshold.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the reduction factor is based on a sector layout within the wireless communications system.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the reduction factor represents a percentage reduction in the timing delay and the estimated signal delay.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the instructions are further operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

defining the reduced search window as a minimum search window setting corresponding to at least the reference sector and the target sector.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the number of handoffs associated with the sector pairing comprises an estimated number of handoffs.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 7 , wherein the instructions are further operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

determining the threshold based on an associated neighbor list size.

14. A system for recommending a search window for use in a wireless communications system, comprising:

a wireless communications system including a plurality of sectors; and

processor electronics configured to perform operations comprising:

identifying, from the plurality of sectors, a sector pairing comprising a reference sector and a target sector for which the number of associated handoffs represents at least a threshold percentage of a total number of handoffs associated with the reference sector;

determining a distance between the reference sector and the target sector;

converting the determined distance to a delay value indicating a delay in communications associated with the identified sector pairing; and

generating a recommended search window in accordance with the delay value when the delay value exceeds a delay threshold.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the number of associated handoffs represents the number of handoffs from the target sector to the reference sector.

16. The system of claim 14 , wherein the threshold percentage of the total number of handoffs associated with the reference sector is a variable threshold determined based on a neighbor list size.

17. The system of claim 14 , wherein the number of associated handoffs is determined based on handoff data provided by one or more items of wireless network infrastructure.

18. The system of claim 14 , wherein the processor electronics are further configured to perform operations comprising:

applying a scaling factor to the determined distance in conjunction with converting the determined distance to the delay value.

19. The system of claim 14 , wherein the number of associated handoffs is estimated.

20. The system of claim 14 , wherein determining the distance between the reference sector and the target sector is performed automatically based on known geo-location data corresponding to the reference sector and the target sector.