Abstract: A cellular radio communications network uses multicast messages for transmitting page requests over the network. Thus, a single message is sent from a paging gateway to a group of addressed base stations, which respond by transmitting paging messages over the air interface. The multicast group for receiving page requests may include all base stations, in which case the base stations must be capable of determining whether they are specifically addressed, and should respond by transmitting a paging message.

Abstract: There is described a method of detecting faults on an uplink control channel, such as an access channel. More specifically, a base station, or other network infrastructure component with a receiver for access requests, is provided with a separate receiver, which is adapted to detect and count access messages. The counted number of access messages is then compared with the number of access messages received by the first receiver. If the number of accesses received by the two receivers are significantly different, this may indicate a fault in the access channel.

Abstract: There is described a method of detecting faults on an uplink control channel, such as an access channel.

Abstract: The present invention involves apparatus and method for providing page messages to mobile radios based on the mobility rates of the mobile radio. For mobile radios that are relatively stationary, page messages are sent to a cell in which the mobile radio resides, while radios which are increasingly mobile receive their page messages on a local area basis. The mobile radio only performs location updates when the situation is optimized for doing so depending upon the mobility of the radio, the introduction of a new cell, the introduction of a new location area, the expiration of a pre-determined time limit and the status of a new cell location flag. A function is defined for location updating on either a locationary basis or a cell basis in accordance with each of the above factors in order to optimize the burden of location area updating and unwanted page broadcasting.

Abstract: A hierarchically structured cellular network is disclosed. When an active mobile station requests a service that requires the use of a network resource not available in the cell handling the ongoing call (or, alternatively, during call set up), the network checks for cells on the higher levels to determine if the required resource is available. If the resource is available in a higher level cell, the call is handed over to that cell and the resource is allocated to the call. The call can be maintained in the higher level cell until the resource is no longer needed, or a “better” cell capable of providing the required resource is found.