The recent commercial launch of PageMart Wireless Inc.’s facilities-based ReFLEX 25 narrowband personal communications services network has heralded in the new age of paging, in which all major paging players will operate some type of two-way network.
SkyTel Communications Inc. no longer will be the exception to the one-way rule. By the turn of the century, we can expect several operators joining the two-way game, including Paging Network Inc., Arch Communications Group Inc., MobileMedia Communications Inc. (assuming they are not acquired by that time), AirTouch Paging Inc. and TSR Wireless L.L.C.
As these companies move forward to secure positions in this new age of advanced services, each brings with them a different rollout schedule and different philosophies.
PageMart
As mentioned, PageMart has taken the first step. Its Scout Guaranteed Messaging service, making use of a facilities-based ReFLEX 25 network, was launched in July in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. Earlier this month, the company disclosed plans to bring the service to another 13 states during August and to make more such announcements each subsequent month throughout the year.
“Our objective is nothing short of having the largest single-company-owned terrestrial two-way network in the United States,” said John Beletic, PageMart chairman and chief executive officer in an interview.
The carrier’s early entry to the NPCS space is expected to bring it sorely needed alphanumeric subscriber customers. PageMart hasn’t the one-way alphanumeric subscribers to fill out this nationwide ReFLEX network. As such, it must attract new users from other sources.
Existing one-way alpha customers previously had only SkyTel to turn to for guaranteed messaging. Now PageMart is bringing a guaranteed messaging service to its extensive retail distribution system. Launching earlier than its competitors is essential for PageMart because it gives the company about two years to take customers from competitors that are not expected to launch similar networks until about 2000.
Beletic said PageMart also plans to make a strong presence in the telemetry and other “off-the-hip” application markets.
“We think that the market for machines in 10 years may be bigger than that for people, in terms of number of units,” he said.
With or without pulses, Beletic said all paging subscribers will share a common connection.
“Our vision of the future is that every person, machine and car will have an IP address for the receipt and return of data,” he said. “With that as a vision, what we feel is absolutely required to make this possible is to have the most ubiquitous network possible.
“The most significant factor for our industry has been the growth of the Internet,” he continued. “For the first time, we have an interconnection between companies for data … and that is the best set up for us. We are the last mile, the final wireless mile for the extension of the Internet to the individual user.”
PageNet
PageNet is in the process of building a two-way ReFLEX 25 network, hoping for a full commercial deployment by mid-1999, or when it achieves full nationwide coverage. The first phase in this effort is modifying the existing InFLEXion network to transmit ReFLEX 25, a capability Motorola Inc. intended when it released the FLEX suite of protocols.
A significant portion of PageNet’s $400 million VoiceNow rollout was spent on the InFLEXion network infrastructure, available in a handful of cities nationwide.
Doug Ritter, PageNet senior vice president of national accounts, said the company then plans to spend another $70 million to $100 million to complete the ReFLEX 25 network nationwide.
Ritter said PageNet will offer both voice and guaranteed messaging in areas where InFLEXion already is available, and just NPCS text messaging in areas without InFLEXion.
Like PageMart, PageNet understands the importance of the Internet, but the carrier is taking a decidedly different tack.
“We are focusing on the content going over that network as opposed to just being the pipe … selling content-based services as opposed to selling pipe,” Ritter said,
He said PageNet’s sales force is geared to work with businesses to find out what information they want to receive and send to their employees on a mobile basis, and then create a customized solution to meet those needs.
“We are aggressively building content capabilities to allow existing and future customers to choose on an individual basis what type of information they would like to receive,” he said.
Ritter also pointed to PageNet’s recent strategic alliance with Computer Associates as a sign of its commitment to telemetry and monitoring applications.
“We believe NPCS as a technology is a perfect fit for telemetry applications,” Ritter said. “But it’s only part of the solution … It’s a large opportunity space, but certainly not a simple solution space.”
Additional middleware and software components not part of a traditional paging network are needed to deliver such services, which Ritter said Computer Associates can provide.
Arch
Arch Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ed Baker said the company is well underway with its own advanced services plan.
“We have completed our own internal tests and deployment of a test network,” he said, noting that made the internal team familiar with ReFLEX 25 technology. “We’ll time the buildout so it dovetails with FCC buildout obligations and dovetails with our need for alphanumeric capacity.”
He said he expects physical buildout to begin in the fourth quarter and into next year. “We expect broad scale commercial service by 2000.”
Arch owns 49.9 percent of Benbow PCS Ventures, along with June Walsh, who owns the other 51.1 percent. That company owns the nationwide NPCS spectrum license Arch will use. According to Baker, Arch has an agreement with Benbow under which it has the responsibility to design, build and operate a two-way network on that license.
While Baker said guaranteed messaging and canned response text messaging is in the cards for this network, Arch is likely to be a leading provider of voice services as well. Arch owns equity interest in the leading voice paging operator, Conxus Communications Inc., and also is testing OmniVoice Technologies Inc.’s VoiceOver technology, which allows compressed voice messages to transmit over FLEX and ReFLEX text networks.
Arch’s NPCS plans could change considerably any time. A Securities and Exchange Commission filing last month revealed the company is in talks to acquire MobileMedia and the industry is waiting for the company to announce a purchase agreement before month’s end. MobileMedia is building out its own NPCS network, which Arch would acquire if the companies merged.
As for the other carriers, Metrocall is mum on its NPCS plans until its acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services’ Advanced Messaging Group is complete. In that acquisition, Metrocall will gain a nationwide NPCS spectrum license. The company said it will announce strategic alliances for the buildout of that license at the end of September.
TSR Wireless plans to build an NPCS network in Philadelphia, and AirTouch Paging declined to be interviewed for this story.
