Ensemble polling strategies for increased paging capacity in mobile communication networks

The process of finding a unit in a mobile communications system is called paging and requires the use of limited network resources. Although it is understood how to minimize the use of network resources and satisfy delay constraints when paging a single unit, optimal policies for paging multiple units are difficult to derive. Here we adapt single unit polling methods to obtain simple ensemble polling schemes for use with multiple units which can greatly increase the rate at which page requests can be processed while maintaining acceptable average delay. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.