A technique includes making a decision to perform a handover of a user device from a source cell to a target cell at a scheduled handover time, determining, by a source base station associated with the source cell, an estimated data rate for transmitting data from the source cell to the user device between a time of the handover decision and the scheduled handover time, determining, based on the estimated data rate and a difference between the time of the handover decision and the scheduled handover time, a portion of data stored in a data buffer associated with the source cell for the user device to be forwarded to the target cell before the scheduled handover time, and forwarding, from the source cell to the target cell before the scheduled handover time, the portion of data stored in the data buffer for the user device.