Controlling mobility in cellular networks using home cell hysteresis and neighbour cell offsets and taking neighbour cell loading into account

A base station of a cellular communications network receives a report from another basestation, to which it may be connected via a local area network, relating to a load on the other basestation based upon which it sets a value for at least one mobility parameter, which may be a neighbour offset parameter, determining mobility between the basestation and the other basestation and broadcasts the parameter value. The parameter may be used by user equipment devices to rank candidate cells when making handover or reselection decisions. A value of a mobility parameter is further set in dependence upon the loading of the basestation, a success rate for previous handover attempts and the quality of signals received from another basestation operating on a different carrier frequency. Where the basestation is a femtocell basestation operating on a different carrier frequency to macrocell basestations and other femtocell basestations a parameter is set to determine when quality measurements on neighbour cells should start.