BellSouth Cellular Corp. signed an agreement with PageMart Wireless Inc., which will allow the cellular carrier to add paging to a mix of bundled services it plans to offer.
Under the agreement, BellSouth will offer paging service initially through its company-owned retail stores and kiosks. The company said it plans to offer numeric and alphanumeric paging services.
A nationwide launch of the paging services is scheduled for the third quarter, following a market pilot launch next month. BellSouth said it will private label and bundle PageMart services to customers in its southeast markets as well as to its cellular affiliates nationwide.
“Paging is a very viable wireless communications service, and it’s something BellSouth did not have in its product portfolio,” said John Jenkins, director of paging at BellSouth Cellular. The company is focusing its efforts on its cellular offerings but also plans to bring landline and Internet services into its bundling fold, added Jenkins.
BellSouth is no stranger to the paging industry. The company in 1996 sold its paging business, MobileComm, to MobileMedia Corp. in a deal valued at $945 million. The company said at the time, the price and timing was right to divest the paging operations.
“BellSouth feels that we don’t need to own a paging company to offer paging services,” said Jenkins, who noted the agreement with PageMart gives BellSouth a quick and effective way to add paging to its portfolio. BellSouth also owns the Ram mobile data network.
