A mobile station is located and paged for a circuit-switched connection in
a GSM system which supports data packet switching (GPRS) services. A
table held by the SGSN is provided for locating a mobile station where
the mobile has moved from the Routing Area in which it was last located
to a cell within the same Location Area which does not support GPRS
services. The GSM system comprises a plurality of base station
controllers (BSS) serving cells in a Location Area (LA), a circuit-switch
control (MSC/VLR) for establishing circuit-switched connections to mobile
stations within the Location Area, and a packet control (SGSN) for
establishing data packet-switching with mobile stations within one or
more Routing Areas (RA) within the Location Area. The packet control, in
response to a paging request, consults information from a table held by
the packet control of base station controllers which serve cells in the
Location Area which are not part of a Routing Area, and instructs base
station controllers to page cells in the Location Area and in particular
the cells not forming part of a Routing Area.