Retention of radio resource connection for short message service message deliviery in a cellular telephone network

A radio resource connection in a successfully authenticated transaction is retained and utilized for other deliveries without requiring performance of paging or security related functions (such as authentication, assignment and ciphering). Responsive to a successfully authenticated transaction, a message is generated indicating that an addressee mobile station is available for attempted redelivery of a stored short message service message. In one implementation, the message is then retrieved and delivered to the mobile station over the retained radio resource connection. In another implementation, all other transactions are provided to the addressee mobile station over the retained radio resource connection, with the retrieved short message service message being subsequently delivered over the retained radio resource connection in a parallel transaction.