Abstract: Disclosed is a method for operating a radio telephone subscriber unit or mobile station (10) to register with a cellular system. The method includes the steps of determining from registration-related information (REGID) that is received from the cellular system that the subscriber unit must register with the cellular system; selecting a channel on which to send a registration message to the cellular system; transmitting the registration message to the cellular system on the selected channel; determining that the registration message was accepted by the cellular system; and, for a case where cellular system paging channels are in a same set of control channels as cellular system access channels, remaining tuned to the selected channel until a receipt of next registration-related information from the cellular system.

Abstract: A method for operating a cellular communications network includes the steps of (a) providing a set of mobile stations that are capable of operating in an idle/sleep mode of operation; (b) transmitting a forward control channel to the set of mobile stations, the forward control channel being organized as a frame structure that is continuously repeated, wherein each frame structure includes an overhead information portion and a plurality of paging information portions; and (c) operating the set of mobile stations to all receive the overhead information portion from every nth frame structure and to receive an assigned one of the paging information portions from every frame structure, wherein n is an integer that is greater than one. The value of n may be fixed or may be made variable. In a presently preferred embodiment of this invention n is equal to six.