Patent ID: 8125967

Claim:
A method comprising: providing service to a plurality of access terminals in a wireless coverage area; receiving data addressed to a first one of the access terminals, the data being associated with a first packet flow; determining that the first access terminal does not have an active traffic channel, and responsively generating a first page for transmission to the first access terminal, the first page being associated with the first packet flow; determining whether the first packet flow is latency-sensitive or rather is latency-tolerant; and if the first packet flow is latency-sensitive, responsively prioritizing the first page over one or more pages respectively associated with one or more latency-tolerant packet flows, the prioritizing being with respect to order of transmission in the wireless coverage area, the method further comprising: maintaining a latency-sensitive-page queue for latency-sensitive pages, wherein prioritizing the first page over one or more pages respectively associated with one or more latency-tolerant packet flows comprises placing the first page in the latency-sensitive-page queue; maintaining a latency-tolerant-page queue for latency-tolerant pages; periodically transmitting a control channel in the wireless coverage area; operating such that a maximum number of pages can be transmitted in the wireless coverage area each time the control channel is transmitted; and each time the control channel is transmitted, selecting up to a first number of pages from the latency-sensitive-page queue, and selecting up to a second number of pages from the latency-tolerant-page queue, wherein the first number is greater than the second number, wherein the first number plus the second number is less than or equal to the maximum number, and transmitting the pages selected from both queues on the control channel.