Paging operators have different ideas about what will be the killer application that attracts paging customers to two-way service. But they do agree about a few things: Paging customers want small devices, low-cost service and they want to know if the page was received. Operators want reliable systems with low ongoing expenses.
“We think the majority of the market will be Level 1 [acknowledgement] service,” said Mark Witsaman, senior vice president of engineering and technology for MobileComm.
The Jackson, Miss.-based company now is building two-way messaging systems in Dallas and San Francisco to test how the service will function in both flat terrain and an environment with rolling hills and valleys. MobileComm expects to turn on trial service in the third quarter. Commercial service could start by year’s end or early 1997.
Two-way operators initially expect to attract experienced paging users, drawing either from their own one-way customer base or attracting people who receive service from another operator.
SkyTel Corp. says 75 percent of its 21,000 2-Way users are new to SkyTel, but are not new to paging; the remaining 25 percent come from SkyTel’s existing customer base.
Witsaman explained, “The majority of units out there are POCSAG. We think the alpha customer will migrate and we will get new customers.”
MobileComm is planning to draw users to its FLEX-based network with a proprietary design for a paging device that will be smaller than the current two-way pagers, such as the Tango by Motorola Inc. “Today’s two-ways are too big. They need to be comparably sized to pagers today, and have a comparable, good price point,” Witsaman said.
Although ReFLEX technology by Motorola Inc. is being examined seriously by numerous paging operators, another candidate for the U.S. two-way paging market is pACT technology, developed jointly by AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Ericsson Inc.
“Operators want the flexibility to address the future market with the technology they choose,” said Rolfe Philip, Ericsson’s director of narrowband PCS. While the initial cost of equipment is important, operators also are making their business case on the expense of ongoing operation, Philip said. Carriers want fewer physical sites and seek a technology that can help with that goal, such as pACT, he said.
The introduction of two-way paging will build on changes in the paging industry that began in the late 1980s, said Alain Briancon, vice president and director of FLEX architecture, protocol and systems for the Motorola Advanced Messaging Group. Value-added services are an important offering in today’s network.
“Carriers are now completely monitoring and paging is moving to be more mission critical,” Briancon said. “There is automation of network management and alarms, and a strong emphasis on remote alarm management.”
No longer do operators install systems and wait to hear from customers about the shortcomings.
“Consumers, I believe, are less tolerant of glitches than the traditional business [user]. They used to just ignore a glitch or two. And two-way operators have to match the coverage of one-way service, which it took years to build. When you roll out new technology, you get bugs,” Briancon said.
SkyTel, which launched the nation’s first two-way service last September, has been battling system design issues and some software matters.
Two-way operators can be expected to have a full menu of services, from simple acknowledgement paging-sometimes called one and one-half-to pre-programmed responses involving an interface on the sending side.
“Every time you advance a step, you affect behavior of someone on one side of this,” Witsaman said.
