Patent ID: 8509821

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 of access terminals having an 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: composing a first page message intended for a first access terminal of the first proper subset, the first page message including data specifying the first access terminal's identifier; composing a second page message intended for a second access terminal of the second proper subset, the second page message including data specifying the second access terminal's identifier, wherein the first access terminal's identifier and the second access terminal's identifier are identical; arranging the first page message and the second page message into one or more groups within one or more general page messages; for a particular group of the one or more groups, arranging page messages within the particular group from first to last; for the first-listed page message in the particular group, prepending a first identifier to the data of the first-listed page message, the first identifier having a first value; for each page message in the particular group that is not the first-listed page message, prepending a second identifier to the data of the not-first-listed page message, the second identifier having a second value transmitting the first page message to the first access terminal during the first paging channel time slot; and transmitting the second page message to the second access terminal during the second paging channel time slot.