Cellular radiotelephone system providing diverse separately-accessible groups of channels

Claim 1

A cellular radiotelephone system including a cell site for transmitting to and receiving from a plurality of subscriber sets control messages and voice information in a plurality of channels including a contiguous set of control channels for carrying the control messages, each subscriber set iteratively scanning at least some of the contiguous control channels from a predetermined beginning channel for control messages and using control information received during each scan to determine the control channels to be scanned during the next scan, said control information including a value identifying the number of channels to be scanned, wherein the improvement comprises providing a first group of subscriber sets with control circuitry that begins scanning at the beginning channel and a second group of subscriber sets with control circuitry that begins scanning at a second control channel displaced from said beginning channel by at least as many control channels as the number to be scanned, so that one group of subscriber sets scans control channels from the beginning and another group of subscriber sets scans other control channels from said second control channel.