GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas-GoPage Inc. announced it has established e-mail paging connections in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and in the Grand Caymen Islands. The company now has its network overlay operating in four countries, including the United States and Canada.
GoPage’s network overlay provides e-mail-to-pager service via shared network infrastructure. The service costs subscribers $48 a year for unlimited calls, of which paging carriers that have agreements with GoPage keep $12.
Eric Fenton, GoPage’s president, said the company plans to introduce a new network system infrastructure by January, the key component of which is a switching system that will allow paging carriers 16,000 trunks and supports the Integrated Services Digital Network protocol, Signaling System 7, and Feature Group D, with long-distance, voice mail and fax services and up to 1,000 live operators.
“Our intention is to change the face of paging completely,” he said, claiming the new switch will finally offer “true one-number service.” He also said it will give paging carriers the ability to keep track of airtime generated from local phone carriers, thereby making it possible for the carriers to charge them under the 1996 Telecommunications Act’s reciprocal agreement.
GoPage currently is in production of a complete South American-based e-mail-to-pager service network overlay system and is eying an entry into Asia and the United Kingdom as well.
Both Fenton and GoPage Chief Executive Officer Tim Minter were executives at Unipage, before the company was bought by Motorola in 1992.
