In this invention, a novel vertical handover control algorithm, consisting of a throughput-based mapping function, QoS-based dynamic handover thresholds, and performance-based trigger timers, are proposed to resolve uncommon pilot problem, QoS requirements, and ping-pong effects, respectively. An analytic model based on a finite state machine is developed to evaluate the proposed algorithm in terms of the handover frequency and achievable throughput. A numerical analysis is also provided to further quantify the performance impacts.