On Reducing Paging Cost in IP-Based Wireless/Mobile Networks

For more scalable mobile services, it is important to reduce the signaling cost for location management. In this paper, we propose a cost effective IP paging scheme utilizing explicit multicast (xcast). Xcast is a new kind of multicast scheme for small sized groups which uses unicast with low maintenance overhead. In terms of the paging algorithm, we use a selective paging scheme to minimize the paging cost, by dividing a paging area into several sub-paging areas. For the performance analysis, we develop an analytical model based on the random walk model in the mesh and hexagonal cell configurations. Using this model, we compared the paging cost between IP paging scheme using xcast and that using unicast or multicast. The results indicate that the proposed paging scheme reduces the paging cost by 44-84% compared with traditional paging schemes using multicast.