The goal of this paper is to comprehensively review the handover policies in wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) system.

Mobile cellular communication becomes more and more important in today’s communication. In a cellular network, the radio and fixed links required are not permanently allocated for the duration of a call. Handover is the functionality to make an on-going call to a different channel or cell. It maintains a call in progress across cell boundaries in mobile communication. In order to provide a multitude of services, especially multimedia and high-bit-rate packet data. ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) adopted Wideband code division multiple access as the mainstream air interface solution for the third-generation networks.