Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate handing over mobile device communications in a wireless network from a source base station to a target base station without using a random access channel (RACH). In this regard, the source base station can request shared data bandwidth resources from the target base station on behalf of the mobile device and assign the resources to the mobile device. The mobile device can calculate a timing difference between the source and target base stations and can handover communications by transmitting over the shared data bandwidth using the timing difference to generally provide correct timing for the transmission. To this end, the target base station can have transmission time intervals where it allows transmitting with an extended cyclic prefix to ensure more reliable handover for the mobile device.