METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR LOW POWER MOBILE UNITS FOR CELLULARCOMMUNICATION SYSTEM

摘要

A method and apparatus for efficient use of both power and bandwidth in a cellular communications system (102) in which a mobile unit preferably enters sleep-mode when no communications have occurred between the mobile unit and the base station over a predetermined amount of time measured by an idle timer (601). Upon expiry of a wake timer (601), the mobile unit wakes from the sleep mode (603) to determine whether a message is pending (606). Concurrently, the base station transmits a TEI-notificatio n message to all mobile units to notify each mobile unit of pending messages. Upon waking to receive the messages the mobile unit determines the quali ty of the transmission (608). If the quality is sufficient (610) ant the TEI-notification message does not indicate pending data, the mobile unit returns to sleep mode (601), even though the mobile unit may reside in a cell other than the cell associated with the base station currently assigned to the mobile unit.