APPARATUS, AND ASSOCIATED METHOD, FOR PAGING A MOBILE STATION WITH PAGE ADDRESSES UPON A PAGING CHANNEL STATION

• US 20090181701A1
• Filed: 01/11/2008
• Published: 07/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Research In Motion Limited (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: WILLEY, WILLIAM DANIEL, CAI, ZHIJUN
• Granted Patent: US 8,644,860 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/458
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/025 Indirect paging
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/26 Network addressing or numbering for mobility support

Abstract

An apparatus and a method for facilitating paging of a mobile station in a multi-user communication system. A page message is generated that includes page addresses of mobile stations that are to be paged. The page addresses are shortened addresses, if possible, that are selected to unambiguously identify the paged mobile stations. The page message includes page addresses of corresponding lengths and of unequal values.

Claims

1. An apparatus for facilitating mobile-station paging, said apparatus comprising:

a page format selector configured to select page address lengths of each page address to be included in a page message, the page address lengths selected to be of minimum lengths that provide page addresses of dissimilar values; and

a formatter configured to format a page message with page addresses of page address lengths selected by said page format selector.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said page format selector is configured to determine a length of each page address that is to be included in the page message.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein said page format selector is further configured to determine which page address is of a shortest length.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein said page format selector is further configured to shorten page address lengths to be included in the page message to be all of common lengths.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein said page format selector is further configured to determine whether any page addresses, once shortened, to be included in the page message are of equal values.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein said page format selector is further configured to lengthen the page addresses to be of dissimilar values.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said page format selector is further configured to select which page addresses are to be included in the page message.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein said page format selector is further configured to select page addresses of nonequal values to be included in the page message.

9. A method for facilitating mobile-station paging, said method comprising:

selecting page address lengths of each page address to be included in a page message, the page address lengths selected to be of minimum lengths that provide page addresses of dissimilar values; and

formatting a page message with page addresses of page address lengths selected during said selecting.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein said selecting further comprises determining a length of each page address that is to be included in the page message.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein said selecting further comprises determining which page address is of a shortest length.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein said selecting further comprises shortening page address lengths to be included in the page message to be all of common lengths.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein said selecting further comprises determining whether any page addresses, once shortened, to be included in the page message are of equal values.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein said selecting further comprises lengthening the page addresses to be of dissimilar values.

15. The method of claim 9 wherein said selecting further comprises selecting which page addresses are to be included in the page message.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein said selecting further comprises selecting page addresses of nonequal values to be included in the page message.

17. The method of claim 9 further comprising sending the page message.

18. The method of claim 9 wherein said formatting further comprises including an address type field associated with each page address.

19. An apparatus for facilitating paging of a mobile station, said apparatus comprising:

a detector configured to detect a page message, the page message having page addresses of corresponding lengths and of dissimilar values; and

a determiner configured to determine whether the mobile station is paged responsive to detection of the page message.

20. A method for facilitating paging of a mobile station, said method comprising:

detecting a page message, the page message having page addresses of corresponding lengths and of dissimilar values; and

determining whether the mobile station is paged responsive to detection of the page message.

21. A method for facilitating mobile-station paging, said method comprising:

selecting page addresses to be included in a page message that are of same lengths and of unequal values; and

formating a page message with page addresses selected by said page format selector.