A method of associating a mobile station to a base station in a wireless communication system comprises transmitting to a serving base station a scanning request message comprising an association indicator. The method also comprises receiving from the serving base station a scanning response message comprising a rendezvous time associated with a neighboring base station for initiating ranging with the neighboring base station, wherein the serving base station communicates an association notification to the neighboring base station, the association notification comprising the rendezvous time. The method also comprises associating with the neighboring base station by transmitting a ranging request after passing of the rendezvous time determined from a transmission time of the scanning response message from the neighboring base station, wherein the rendezvous time is associated with a time the neighboring base station is expected to provide a non-contention based ranging opportunity for the mobile station.