Techniques are provided for performing early decoding of a message on a
control channel in a wireless (e.g., GSM) communication system. In a GSM
system, a message for a paging channel is transmitted in four bursts. For
early decoding in GSM, a terminal initially receives the first two bursts
for the message. The two bursts are processed and decoded to recover the
message, which is then checked to determine whether it has been decoded
correctly or in error. The decoding process can terminate and the
terminal may go to sleep early if the recovered message is good.
Otherwise, the third burst is received, and all three bursts are
processed and decoded to recover the message. Again, the decoding process
can terminate if the recovered message is good. Otherwise, the fourth
burst is received, and all four bursts are processed and decoded to
recover the message.