A5/1 Cipher Enhancement – SDCCH handover provides an additional security enhancement for the generally employed A5/1 Ciphering security mechanism and mitigates the risks associated with a potential “cracking” of the existing mechanism.To make A5/1 more secure an immediate intra-cell SDCCH handover mechanism is employed. That is, once the first ciphered message is received, for all A5/1 ciphered communications (excluding Emergency Calls) an intra-cell handover is performed to another SDCCH channel.