The teachings of the present disclosure relate to seamless handover between macro base stations and publicly accessible femto base stations that includes scheduling a null period in a femto base station's communications activity. The method also includes monitoring mobile station activity during the null period at the femto base station. A candidate mobile station is identified based on the monitoring. An identifier of the candidate mobile station is transmitted from the femto base station to a macro base station. The identifier may be used to initiate handover of service of the candidate mobile station from the macro base station to the femto base station.