In a wireless network, a mobile station is in a serving radio link with a serving base station. A handover is desired so that the mobile station can establish a target radio link with a target base station. When the handover process is initiated, the target base station is alerted about the impending handover by the serving base station. The target base station allocates a radio resource set and provides information on the radio resource set piggy backed onto an alert response message to the serving base station. The serving base station relays radio resource set piggybacked onto either a handover request or response message to the mobile station. The mobile station breaks the serving radio link with the serving base station and establishes the target radio link using the radio resource set.