In Circuit Switched Technologiy of GSM, the mobile,  switched  on by the user,

acts as follows:

It reads the SYSTEM INFORMATIONS sent by the Broadcast Control CHannel 

of its Cell, finds  in the message SYSTEM INFORMATION TYPE 1  the
frequencies of Broadcast- and Traffic Channel, finds in the message SYSTEM
INFORMATION TYPE 2  the beacon frequencies of the neighbour cells.  In 
SYSTEM INFORMATION TYPE 3/4 it reads about the location it resides and
some other features. With the gained Information the mobile can pretune its
components.

Now the mobile has to request a Channel to send a LOCATION UPDATE

REQUEST and after some negotiations it waits for, either a PAGING REQUEST
from the network calling its (IMSI) TMSI, or the user of the mobile sets up a call.
In both cases the mobile gets in an IMMEDIATE ASSIGN  message the traffic
channel and the timeslot, building the channel conveying all the necessary control
and (voice) data information between  the peers of the now active communication
line.