Abstract: A method is provided of selecting cells (18,22) of base stations (16,24) of a network for mobile telecommunications for soft-handover connection with a mobile user terminal (20) so as to provide at a first network node (14) multiple received representations of a data frame from the mobile user terminal (20) within a predetermined period. For each cell (18,22) delay due to transfer of a representation of the received data frame across interface(s) (28,30,8) between network nodes along a transfer path to said first network node (14) is estimated by determining the contribution to the delay caused by each interface along the transfer path. Cells (18,22) are selected dependent upon the associated delays.