Patent ID: 7061879

Claim:
A method for a communication unit to extend battery life comprising the steps of: exiting a sleep mode in which power is conserved to begin monitoring a paging slot; receiving in the paging slot an indication of what groups of messages will be transmitted by a communication infrastructure in the paging slot; determining whether any of the groups of messages indicated need to be received by the communication unit during the paging slot; and when the groups of messages indicated do not need to be received, entering a sleep mode to conserve power, wherein the indication of what groups of messages will be transmitted in the paging slot comprises an indication of what types of messages will be transmitted in the paging slot and wherein the method further comprises the step of: when at least one type of message indicated does need to be received, monitoring the paging slot to receive all of the messages in a group of needed messages before entering a sleep mode to conserve power, wherein the group of needed messages comprises at least one message of the at least one type of message indicated that does need to be received.