A paging controller (10) schedules the transmission of pages of different protocol types, dynamically, taking into account both the airtime efficiency of transmitting a page of a particular protocol type and the fairness of transmitting pages of that protocol type. The paging controller (10) determines the efficiency of transmitting stored pages for each protocol type based upon the number of code words stored for the pages of the protocol type in a paging queue (27-30) and based upon the delay, if any, that is expected to be encountered in changing to the protocol type. The paging controller (10) determines the fairness of transmitting pages of a particular protocol type based upon the age of the pages of the protocol type that are stored in the paging queue (27-30). The paging controller (10) schedules and encodes only up to a predetermined limited number of batches/frames of pages of the selected protocol type so that if pages of a different protocol type are received by the paging controller (10) that are determined to be more efficiently and fairly transmitted than the currently selected paging type, the paging controller (10) can quickly change to the protocol type of the newly received pages.