Imagine a reseller being able to offer paging services to thousands of customers while only paying a carrier for one cap code.
Stop imagining.
WireLink Communication Inc.-a small pager manufacturer based in Upland, Calif., new to the industry and relatively unheard of-said it has created a line of pagers that allows up to 9,999 pagers to share one cap code and one phone number, but separated by extensions.
According to David Okomoto, WireLink sales manager, the pager’s 900 MHz RF board can differentiate between many pagers sharing a cap code through a four-digit extension and will not pass the message over to the digital or display board unless it has with it the appropriate extension.
It works like this: Joe Reseller signs up 100 customers for paging service and gives each a WireLink pager. Joe Reseller’s customer, Jack User, doesn’t get his own telephone number, but shares a phone number with Joe Reseller’s other 99 customers and is assigned his own extension, let’s say ext. 123, for which he pays a discounted monthly fee for sharing.
When Jack User’s girlfriend decides to page him, she dials the telephone number shared by all 100 of Joe Reseller’s customers, followed by *123 and then enters a numeric message.
That page is then broadcast over the carrier’s network to all 100 of Joe Reseller’s customers. Each of those pagers in fact receives the page. However, those pagers do not beep or display the message. Only Jack User’s pager-programmed with extension 123-beeps and displays the message.
WireLink’s pagers can handle up to 9,999 extensions. So theoretically, a reseller can sign up 9,999 customers, and the carrier’s network will broadcast a page meant for one person to all 9,999, although only one of those actually will know he or she is being paged.
Resellers probably wouldn’t want to put that many users on one number, but they may gamble that 20 customers can share one number without service problems. Of course, most monthly message plans offered to resellers allow only a limited amount of messages, such as 250 or 500. But resellers willing to roll the dice may put 10 to 20 users on one number and hope the users don’t go over the limit. Or, resellers could purchase the more-expensive unlimited messages plan.
WireLink, originally called MotoBell USA Inc., is the U.S. subsidiary of MotoBell in Taiwan, which has been in business seven years.
Steve Lan, WireLink president, said he is aware the extension paging system may be in conflict with paging providers that may not want several people sharing one cap code, but said he hopes carriers will create special programs for those using extension pagers.
“It’s not easy for everybody to remember each others’ pager numbers. If they all have one number with their own extensions, it’s easy,” he said.
Taiwan has dealt with this extension issue for some time. The government, which once owned the only paging service provider, tried to limit this shared cap code system by allowing only 50 messages a day per cap code because businesses there had no qualms about putting hundreds of customers on one phone number.
One reseller in Huntington Beach, Calif., predicted WireLink pagers are “going to change the whole industry.”
Lan said he only puts 20 users on one cap code because he doesn’t want the carrier to get upset. In the three weeks he has been using the WireLink pagers, he hasn’t received any complaints from the carriers for which he resells, but “in a matter of time, we’re going to start getting phone calls,” he said.
The pagers are more expensive than others, he said, but they offer more functions as well. “We see a great benefit on the side of the reseller,” he said, calling the WireLink pagers the potential weapon resellers need to fight the ever-increasing resale charges carriers demand. “People are being choked” by cutthroat pricing, he said, and this is a way of generating more revenue for less cost.
The WireLink line of pagers consists of three types of POCSAG pagers: the Generation X, Intruder and Echo I.
The Gen X currently is available and used by resellers today. Plans call for the Intruder to be available sometime in March or April, and the Echo I won’t be offered until late April or May, according to Okomoto.
All pagers offer other functions, as well, including a group paging function, allowing businesses to page employees individually or in different groups.
The Gen X pager is the most basic; it offers individual extension and group paging ability and musical caller ID option. Musical caller ID allows the pager’s owner to program up to 10 distinct musical alerts, each of which are triggered by a certain numeric message.
The Intruder offers the same features as the Gen X, but also can program the pager’s cap code, extension number and baud rate by telephone and can shut it off the same way.
It also contains 14 canned-text messages. Entering a special code after a numeric message will prompt the pager to display a stored text message along with the numeric message, such as “Call Office,” or “See you soon.”
The Echo I can “speak” the numeric message so the person paged need not look at the display. Also, the user can hold the pager to a DTMF-compatible phone and have the pager acoustically dial the return number.
