Apparatus and method for determining soft or softer handoff are described. The present invention includes the steps of comparing sectors in an active set to set values corresponding to the soft or softer handoff for the sectors, respectively in a base station, transmitting a first parameter for selecting cell switching parameters between the sectors neighboring each other in the active set to a mobile station wherein the set values for the respective sectors are included in the first parameter, generating values of a parameter PDCH_GROUP_IDENTIFIER corresponding to a packet data channel group identifier using the set values included in the first parameter, determining whether a serving sector and a target sector among the sectors are in the soft or softer handoff using the generated values of the parameter PDCH_GROUP_IDENTIFIER, and selecting the cell switching parameters accordingly.