When voice paging carrier Conxus Communications Inc. shut off its network in the closing days of August, many wondered what would happen to the nearly 80,000 customers stranded in the process.
As time was running out, Motorola Inc. led an effort to keep the network on the air for a few days longer, giving subscribers more time to find an alternative communications source.
“What we were able to do, in conjunction with the others involved, was enable the network to stay on the air through the end of the month to give subscribers more time to find another provider-about four days or so,” said Motorola spokesman Ken Countess.
For many, that involved switching from voice paging to alphanumeric text, a fairly seamless transition overall. Conxus sold its service through a series of resellers, many of whom also sell paging and wireless voice services from other carriers. Most simply offered the Conxus customers a deal for new equipment and airtime through one of their other providers. Many offered several months of free service and discounted pagers to make the transition easier.
One of the larger Conxus resellers, paging carrier TSR Wireless L.L.C., said it put together a special alphanumeric package in time for former Conxus customers to switch over before they lost service completely.
PocketScience Inc., a Santa Clara, Calif.-based company, offered its PocketMail e-mail service and a pager for free to all Pocketalk customers turning in their old voice pagers.
Because so many Conxus users called Motorola’s customer help line for answers, as the pager is branded with the Motorola logo, Countess said the company offered all those who called coupons worth up to $100 off any other Motorola device.
Now that the customers are all off the network and using new communications options, the ongoing issue is the fate of Conxus’ infrastructure and its Federal Communications Commission licenses. Conxus owes the FCC $87 million for its narrowband personal communications license.
