State machine diagram (300) illustrates inactive connection (303) management wherein all bindings are deregistered, but active sessions remain. The mobile station may, re-register the connection (309), to stop the Linger Timer (305) and return the connection to the active state (303) before timeout, or otherwise before the inactive connection is terminated. Otherwise, the Linger Timer may be stopped when the last active session is moved to a different connection, or released (311). If the Linger Timer times out (315), any active sessions will be released without the explicit action of the mobile station. In the active state (303), if all bindings are deregistered and no active sessions are present, the connection may be terminated immediately as in (313), without invoking the Linger Timer. Thus, the mobile station has an opportunity to take action regarding remaining sessions, such as releasing or refreshing on a different but active connection.