To address the need for an apparatus and method for handoff from a cellular wireless
network to a non-cellular wireless network (WLAN, e.g.), the present application
describes an access gateway (214) and a dual mode mobile station (201)
that enable such handoffs. The MS provides information to the access gateway so
that it can initiate a handoff with the serving cellular MSC (251). By triggering
handoffs in this manner, cellular networks need not have special information about
non-cellular networks to support handoffs. Instead, dual mode MSs can determine
when a handoff to a non-cellular network is preferred and request a handin (302)
from the non-cellular network.