A method and system for soft handover detection for uplink interference avoidance that includes a network device and mobile device in a communications network. The mobile device uses a downlink carrier. A parameter, such as a signal strength or a signal quality, of the downlink carrier and one of a co-sited downlink carrier or neighboring downlink carrier is measured. A soft handover area is detected by the network device or the mobile device based on comparing the signal strength or the signal quality of the downlink carrier with the signal strength or the signal quality of one of the co-sited downlink carrier or the neighboring downlink carrier. The downlink carrier, the co-sited downlink carrier or the neighboring downlink carrier may be from a core band, (e.g., 2.0 GHz), or extension band, (e.g., 2.5 GHz), of frequencies or combination thereof. The system provides for handovers while uplink carrier interference is avoided.