The role of paging in providing location transparency within cellular systems

Location transparency masks the use of information about location in space and time when identifying interfaces. The Telecommunications Information Network Architecture's (TINA) Distributed Processing Environment (DPE) is used as a model in this paper. Location transparency is provided in the TINA architecture by locating the DPE between the application layer and the Native Computing and Communications Environment (NCCE). Current cellular systems employ the paging procedure to contact the mobile terminal in the case of incoming call establishment. This paper focuses on the examination of the paging procedure in relation to providing location transparency for applications requiring a cellular system to page a mobile terminal. Three layers are used: the application layer; the DPE layer; and the underlying cellular system (NCCE). Three scenarios are presented which locate the paging procedure in one of the three layers mentioned; the application layer, the DPE and the NCCE.