While leading companies in all segments of the wireless industry are growing through consolidation, Dallas-based PageMart Inc. is flourishing by concentrating on the internal growth of its paging operations.
Although PageMart started out as a private carrier paging company, it ranked sixth on RCR’s list of Top 20 Paging Companies, which combined both PCPs and radio common carriers (RCR, Nov. 6, p.16). The company then reported 1.1 million subscribers nationwide.
PageMart also recently placed 25th on Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing privately held companies in America and ranked third in creating the most new jobs.
“We achieved that because of a lot of good people, a lot of money and a lot of spectrum, plus some technical advantages,” said John Beletic, the company’s president and chief executive officer. “We operate like and think like the big (RCC) paging carriers,” he said. But added, “What distinguishes us is that 100 percent of our growth has come from inside sales, not mergers or acquisitions.”
Beletic said PageMart has three nationwide licenses at 929 MHz-two of them for its exclusive use-and all of its 1,300 transmitters are used for providing nationwide coverage. The entire network has been converted to Motorola Inc.’s FLEX high-speed transmission protocol.
The company also recently announced purchasing ReFLEX and InFLEXion advanced two-way paging systems from Motorola. Field trials of the systems will be held in the second quarter of 1996 in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
PageMart won a nationwide narrowband personal communications services license at auction and also was able to piece together a second nationwide NPCS network by winning five regional licenses. “We’re spectrum rich in both traditional paging and narrowband PCS,” Beletic said.
The company leverages off that wealth of spectrum with wide distribution of its service and some innovative marketing. Beletic claims PageMart has the most comprehensive distribution of any wireless company in retail with a presence in nine different types of retail channels-including exclusive relationships with 45 of the country’s top electronics retailers-and a direct sales force in 60 metropolitan statistical areas.
Last July the company announced a strategic alliance with Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems for Southwestern Bell to distribute PageMart’s paging services on a private-label basis.
In September, PageMart introduced an automated, low-cost roaming service called infoRoam.
PageMart said it plans to roll out commercial two-way data and voice messaging service in the latter half of 1996, about the same time the company hopes to go public.
