A system by which paging can be performed to support global reachability in a heterogeneous multi-access environment independently on a particular radio access network architecture. Various embodiments of the present invention provide methods for performing generic paging in heterogeneous multi-access networks based on incoming traffic and its characteristics, producing a topology-based coverage map of dynamic access networks. The framework of the various embodiments of the present invention supports the use of user preferences in the selective paging process; i.e. the most optimal radio access is activated according to user preferences and the current networking environment.