Power consumption of a mobile terminal is reduced by providing a system wherein a base station specifies a time period, at the end of which a mobile terminal that is hibernating in a power-saving mode will listen for paging messages from the base station. If no paging messages are present, then the mobile terminal continues hibernating, thus conserving battery power by not communicating with the base station. Either the base station or the mobile terminal can initiate a process to transfer the mobile terminal from an awake mode to a hibernating mode. In accordance with another embodiment of the invention for use in systems that require frequent connectivity testing, an agent can be provided within the base station to answer connectivity test inquiries on behalf of the mobile terminal. The mobile terminal can communicate periodically with the base station to update information that the agent uses to respond to the test inquiries.