Patent ID: 8346220

Claim:
A method performed in a radio network controller, the method comprising: receiving, from an originating access terminal, a data over signaling (DoS) message that identifies a recipient access terminal; and transmitting, to a radio node, back-to-back messages that comprise a page message and the data over signaling message, the back-to-back messages causing a radio node to: store the data over signaling message in a buffer; sort the data over signaling message with respect to other data over signaling messages based on a unicast access terminal identifier of the data over signaling message; transmit the page message to one or more sectors of the radio node; and if a response to the page message is received from the recipient access terminal before the expiration of a timeout period, transmit the data over signaling message to the recipient access terminal; and if a response to the page message is not received before the expiration of the timeout period, clear the data over signaling message from the buffer; wherein the timeout period is based on a count of control channel cycles.