PRIORITY MEASUREMENT RULES FOR CHANNEL MEASUREMENT OCCASIONS

Based on the determined signal strength of a serving cell, a choice is made whether to utilize a cell-FACH measurement occasion for a lower priority neighbor cell search or for a higher priority neighbor cell search. The lower priority neighbor cell search is for maintaining wireless connectivity and the higher priority neighbor cell search is for accessing enhanced wireless service. In specific examples the search may be inter-frequency for frequency layers with higher or lower priority than a serving layer of the serving cell, or the search may be inter-RAT such as the lower priority GERAN search and a higher priority E-UTRAN search if the serving cell is WCDMA. In one example there are two thresholds for the signal strength, and if higher than both then the measurement occasion is used for an E-UTRAN search regardless of whether GERAN or inter-frequency neighbour cells have been configured for the UE practicing the invention.