A method for locating a mobile device in a wireless communications system comprised of a plurality of base stations is provided. The method comprises associating the mobile device with a first base station of the plurality of base stations. Thereafter, a paging signal is delivered from a subset of base stations associated with the first base station to the mobile device. The subset of base stations may correspond to a network active set of base stations associated with the mobile device. Thereafter, when a signal from one of the base stations in the subset of base stations is received, indicating that the mobile device responded to the paging signal from the one base station, then the mobile device is located and may be associated with the one base station for future paging attempts.