METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR MANAGING PAGING IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORK
FIG3 is a signalling diagram illustrating a procedure for sending small data transmissions
In the procedure discussed above and illustrated in FIG3, the UE starts with a random access procedure but the data included with message 3 is transmitted over an orthogonal scheme (e.g. PUSCH / PUCCH) thanks to the UL grants provided by the eNB. An alternative procedure would be to use a Contention-Based (CB) channel to directly send data with message 3 (possibly including on this channel the indication that the UE wishes to immediately return to the inactive state. In this case the UE either needs to be pre-configured as to how to use the CB channel or to read the configuration via system information. Another alternative procedure would be for the UE to transmit infrequent small data directly on a CB channel without any RRC signaling. A CB channel would therefore be defined that can be used for small infrequent data and that UEs can access in the inactive state. In RAN2#95bis, one of the agreed design questions that the small data transmission solution needs to address is how downlink acknowledgements (e.g. from higher layer protocols) are addressed. In order to ensure reliability, it is quite likely that acknowledgement of UL transmissions may need to be provided on many layers e.g. HARQ, RLC, TCP and the Application layer. If the UE immediately returns to the RRC_Inactive state after an UL transmission (i.e. multiplexed with or following the RRCConnectionResumeRequest message in FIG3), these acknowledgments would trigger paging and lead to significant inefficiencies. For example, there may be a long delay until the DL data can be delivered, since the paging occasions, i.e. the time instances when paging messages can be sent to the UE, are typically configured at relatively long intervals to enable power saving in the UE. Further, there may be additional signaling overhead due to the RRC signaling needed to put the UE back into RRC_Connected mode in order to receive the acknowledgement messages. Although the concepts outlined herein are applicable in a number of different scenarios, two particular use cases are outlined below as examples. In the first use case, a wireless terminal device follows the procedure outlined in FIG3 for transmitting a small data packet while in the RRC_Inactive state (i.e. waking from the RRC_Inactive state temporarily to transmit the small data packet before reverting to the RRC_Inactive state).
diagram
3
message
['7. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the step of configuring (504) the terminal device with one or more second paging occasions  comprises broadcasting system information indicating the second paging occasions, or transmitting to the terminal device a dedicated control message indicating the second paging occasions.']