The need to reduce the cost associated with signaling mobiles (120) across multiple cells (101-108) is addressed by embodiments of the present invention. A targeted MS is initially paged only in those cells in which the paging channel loading level is below a particular paging threshold. Similarly for short messaging, the RAN transmits the short messaging to the MS only in those cells in which the paging channel loading level is below a short messaging threshold. Therefore, the MS can be signaled in under-loaded cells first, were the effect on system capacity and performance is negligible. When successful, the MS signaling is achieved at a lower cost to the system than when loaded cells are involved.