Patent ID: 8639275

Claim:
In a wireless communication system in which a radio access network (RAN) transmits page messages in paging channel time slots, wherein the RAN serves a plurality of wireless access terminals, each access terminal of the plurality having a globally unique identifier, wherein each access terminal of a first proper subset of the plurality of access terminals is arranged to monitor a first paging channel time slot for page messages and each access terminal of a second proper subset of the plurality of access terminals is arranged to monitor a second paging channel time slot for page messages, a paging method comprising: assigning a respective first temporary identifier to each access terminal of the first proper subset, wherein the respective first temporary identifier has a shorter length than the globally unique identifier, and wherein the respective first temporary identifier is locally unique among the access terminals of the first proper subset; assigning a respective second temporary identifier to each access terminal of the second proper subset, wherein the respective second temporary identifier has a shorter length than the globally unique identifier, and wherein the respective second temporary identifier is locally unique among the access terminals of the second proper subset, and wherein one of the respective first temporary identifiers is identical to one of the respective second temporary identifiers; and transmitting during the first paging channel time slot a first page message carrying data specifying a respective first temporary identifier, so that a first access terminal detects the data specifying the respective first temporary identifier in the first page message and determines based on the data that the first page message is intended for the first access terminal.