A method for performing a soft handoff for a mobile station from a source base station to a target base station in an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) wireless network that is capable of communicating with a plurality of mobile stations in a coverage area of the OFDMA wireless network is provided. The method includes determining whether a relative delay between receipt of a source pilot signal from a source base station and receipt of a target pilot signal from a target base station is less than a downlink coherence time. When the relative delay is less than the downlink coherence time, the soft handoff is performed.