Paging functionality in an experimental UMTS network

The European research project EXODUS (Experiments on the deployment of UMTS) investigates an access-independent network architecture for supporting 3/sup rd/ generation mobile services. This paper describes the general architecture of the EXODUS platform and focuses on the specific paging functionality used in this type of intelligent network (IN). A detailed description with information flow of the paging process helps to emphasise the issues encountered when paging is used. The technique applied is based on a "look ahead" principle, whereby information about the terminal is gathered before a connection is allowed to be setup. This look ahead technique is also compared with the paging procedure used in GSM.