Patent ID: 6952426

Claim:
A method of operating access points in a CDMA/HDR communications network including access terminals capable of operation in an active or a dormant mode of operation, comprising: one or more of the access points detecting that one or more of the access terminals are operating in or transitioning to a dormant mode of operation; one or more of the access points assigning one or more of the dormant access terminals to one or more corresponding common traffic channels; one or more of the access points transmitting short data bursts to one or more of the dormant access terminals using the assigned corresponding common traffic channels; one or more of the access points detecting that one or more of the dormant access terminals did not acknowledge receipt of the short data bursts; one or more of the access points re-assigning one or more of the non-acknowledging dormant access terminals to different corresponding common channels; and one or more of the access points re-transmitting the short data bursts to one or more of the non-acknowledging dormant access terminals using the re-assigned common traffic channels.