Importance

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Abstract

A cellular phone paging system that uses a frame oriented scheme to transmit and receive mobile unit pages with reduced delay is disclosed. Each mobile unit in the cellular phone network is assigned a paging slot within the frames on the forward control channel. If a plurality of pages are to be sent along the forward control channel and the pages are assigned to the same paging slot, the pages will be transmitted in successive paging slots beginning with the assigned slot rather than in the assigned slot in a series of sequential frames. In order to receive its pages, a mobile unit inspects its assigned paging slot and the next sequential paging slots if its assigned paging slot has been filled with a page request to another unit. The mobile unit continues to check sequential paging slots until it identifies a page to itself or identifies an empty slot. The mobile unit may reduce its power consumption by turning off some of its electronic circuitry while not monitoring the contents of its assigned slot and, if necessary, the contents of successive slots. In this manner, paging delays between base stations and mobile units are reduced to a minimum while maintaining idle mode power consumption conservation provided by frame-based paging schemes.

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First Claim