A wireless communication system comprises a mobile station and a base station, which use a plurality of communication channels and a pilot channel corresponding to at least one of the communication channels. The base station has a transmitting unit that employs at least one of the communication channels as a priority channel and transmits channel information of this priority channel and the other channels by use of a communication channel other than the pilot channel. The mobile station has a determining unit that determines a reception level of the pilot channel; an acquiring unit that acquires the channel information transmitted via the communication channel other than the pilot channel; and a deciding unit that decides, as an available communication channel, at least one of the communication channels based on both the channel information acquired by the acquiring unit and the reception level determined by the determining unit.