Abstract: A plurality of paging terminals each serving a locality are connected by a multi-drop communication link to establish an inter-regional paging network. The terminals observe a token passing protocol to provide for an orderly sequential use of the communication link. Down terminals are skipped in the sequence. The lack of activity on the communication link will cause a start-up timer in the terminal to reset. Retransmissions are requested by a terminal from another terminal which is on-line when the terminal fails to receive a message in a particular round through the network.