Load reduction of a visitor location register

A method for paging a mobile station (MS) in the area of a mobile services switching centre (MSC) in a digital mobile telephone network wherein, at any time, the location area (LA) of a mobile station (MS) is maintained in one Visitor Location Register (VLR) and the information on the VLR is maintained in one Home Location Register (HLR), when information on the location area (LA) of the mobile station (MS) has been lost by the switching centre (MSC), characterized in that

• the area covered by the physical visitor location register (VLR) of the switching centre (MSC) is divided into areas of a plurality of logical visitor location registers (LVLRn);
• and
• the mobile station (MS) is paged, at least at first, only in the area of the logical visitor location register (LVLRn) last indicated by the mobile station.

A mobile services switching centre (MSC) in a digital mobile telephone network wherein, at any time, the location information of a mobile station (MS) is maintained in one Visitor Location Register (VLR) and the information on the VLR is maintained in one Home Location Register (HLR), said mobile services switching centre (MSC) comprising a physical visitor location register (VLR) and being adapted to transmit information to a home location register (HLR) of the mobile telephone network on the physical visitor location registers (VLR) in the area of which each mobile station (MS) is located, characterized in that

• the area covered by the physical visitor location register (VLR) of the switching centre (MSC) is divided into areas of a plurality of logical visitor location registers (LVLRn);
• and
• the switching centre (MSC) is also adapted to transmit information to the home location register (HLR) on the logical visitor location registers (LVLRn) in the area of which each mobile station (MS) is located.

A location update message in a digital mobile telephone network (NSS) wherein, at any time, the location information of a mobile station (MS) is maintained in one Visitor Location Register (VLR) and the information on the VLR is maintained in one Home Location Register (HLR), said location update message containing information on the visitor location register (VLR) in whose area the mobile station (MS) is located, characterized in that the location update message further contains information on the logical visitor location register (LVLRn) in the area of which the mobile station (MS) is located.