A novel algorithm for efficient paging in mobile WiMAX

Idle mode operation is used in Mobile WiMAX networks to conserve battery power when a mobile station (MS) is not engaged in active call sessions. An idle-mode MS is paged to alert it to pending downlink traffic. Paging latency and paging signaling overhead are the two important parameters that determine the performance of paging procedures. It is desired that a paging algorithm minimize paging signaling overhead without compromising paging latency requirements. In this paper, a novel algorithm is proposed to minimize paging signaling overhead while ensuring that paging latency is bounded by a maximum desired value, referred to as paging latency upper limit. The proposed algorithm groups the idle-mode MSs into different paging sets and aggregates their paging information into one paging message. This aggregation of paging information reduces paging signaling overhead significantly. The cardinality of each paging set is determined in such a way that paging latency is bounded by the paging latency upper limit. Therefore, the proposed algorithm achieves a good tradeoff between paging latency and paging signaling overhead