A method for facilitating a mobile station to perform a fast handoff in a wireless communication system allows a handoff procedure to be anticipated (by the mobile station, its serving base station, or both) based on historical information regarding prior successful handoff procedures. In operation, the serving base station monitors (510) current mobile station parameters and compares them with historical data. If the parameters indicate a high probability target base station (515), the serving base station requests allocation (525) of air interface resources at the high probability target base station prior to the mobile station reporting reception of signal from the high probability target base station. This facilitates fast handoff from the serving base station to the high probability target base station.