A system and method for accommodating a rapid transition between heterogeneous radio access technologies is provided. A local network 105 having a controller 114 and a plurality of access points 106,107,108,109,110,111 receives information 117 from a communication device 101 relating to the network 116 it is exiting. During the transition process from a first network 116, for example a cellular wide area network, to a second network 105, for example an IMS-WLAN, the communication device 101 passes its wide area network servicing base station information 117 to an access point 106 of the local network 105. Upon exiting the local network 105, wide area network servicing base station information 121 is delivered to an exiting communication device 112, thereby enabling it to abbreviate or eliminate traditional scanning and acquisition processes that occur in network handoff exchanges.