The invention is directed at a method of distributing system information to one or more mobile terminals in a cellular telecommunications network. The network comprises at least one signaling cell serving a first coverage area, and one or more data cells associated with said signaling cell, each one of said data cells serving a respective partial coverage area covering at least a part of the first coverage area. For each one of said data cells, the respective data cell is operated in either an active or inactive communication mode depending on whether there is at least one of said mobile terminals present in the partial coverage area of said respective data cell, and whether said at least one mobile terminal operates in an active terminal mode and is not served by other data cells.