While Motorola Inc.’s FLEX paging technology begins to dash across the globe, POCSAG remains the de facto standard in the international paging world, said Ann Lynch, an analyst with the Yankee Group.
However, compared to mobile telephony, traditional paging is faring poorly in Europe, and paging growth is slow in most Latin American countries as well.
POCSAG claims about 90 percent of the European market, but going forward, Western European countries support the ERMES standard. ERMES suffered a weak introduction and equally poor reception in the marketplace. It was slated to start service in 1992, but limited service was not introduced until late 1995, reported Lynch, claiming no more than 1 or 2 percent of the market. The protocol transmits outbound at 6,250 bps on a 25-kilohertz channel.
While some technology experts believe ERMES technology is inferior to the new technologies being developed, ERMES is not likely to go away anytime soon because it was developed by a handful of Western Europe’s monarchy telephone companies, which have a vested interest in deploying it, explained Lynch.
GOLAY and other outmoded technologies hold a stagnant 2 percent market share.
Further stifling paging growth in Europe is the revenue potential of cellular, added Lynch.
Paging service is doing better in Spain and Portugal, where half of the subscribers use alphanumeric paging, commented Lynch.
Aside from Brazil, Mexico and a few other countries, paging has been slow to grow in Central and Latin America.
Mexico is slated to auction spectrum in July, said Larry Conlee, corporate vice president and director of worldwide markets, Motorola Inc.’s Advanced Messaging Group. Technology choices have not been determined in Mexico, but because all of North, Central and South America follow the U.S. frequency plan, Motorola is optimistic FLEX protocols will be embraced in Mexico.
Argentina and Brazil are pursuing two-way messaging, said Conlee, where “the image of advanced messaging is attractive.” In Latin and South America, alphanumeric dominates over numeric.
