User equipment and method for power saving in RRC inactive or RRC IDLE states

A user equipment (UE) for performing a power saving operation in one of a radio resource control (RRC)_INACTIVE state or an RRC_IDLE state, the UE comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium coupled to the at least one processor and storing one or more computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the UE to:
• receive a first configuration from a base station (BS), the first configuration indicating a paging search space;
• determine a paging occasion (PO) based on the paging search space;
• receive a second configuration from the BS, the second configuration being different from the first configuration and indicating a first search space for monitoring a specific indication that indicates, to the UE, whether to monitor the PO, the first search space being different from the paging search space;
• monitor a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) in the first search space to detect the specific indication, the specific indication further indicating a UE group;
• determine whether to monitor the PO based on whether the specific indication is detected in the first search space and whether the UE is associated with the UE group;
• monitor the PO in response to determining that the specific indication is successfully detected in the first search space and that the UE is associated with the UE group;
• and
• skip monitoring the PO in response to determining that the specific indication is not successfully detected in the first search space or the UE is not associated with the UE group.