3.

3 Paging groups

1
2
3
4
5

After an MS tunes to the BCCH carrier and decodes the System

Information, it performs an evaluation to which paging group it
belongs, and hence, which particular paging block of the available
blocks on the paging channel that is to be monitored.
Figure 5: Paging group
The operator can set the number of paging groups for each cell.
A high number of paging groups means that the MSs have to wait for a longer
time than the low number case before the right paging block arrives. This
increases the time for paging.
A low number of paging groups shortens the call setup time due to that the MS
listens to the paging block more frequently. The drawback is that the MS power
consumption is higher.
There are two main parameters that determine the number of paging groups in a
cell (besides BCCHTYPE). The two parameters are AGBLK and MFRMS:
AGBLK: This parameter determines how many of the paging blocks per multiframe are reserved for the AGCH.
MFRMS: is the multi-frame interval and is defined as the transmission interval of
paging messages to the same paging group.
Number of paging group is subject to the setting of MFRMS and
AGBLK. The formula to calculate the number of paging group is as
below:

Combined BCCH/SDCCH cells:

Number of paging groups = (3 - AGBLK) * MFRMS