FLEX has been adopted en masse in the paging industry, at least in principle. In reality, the majority of U.S. one-way paging customers are POCSAG customers and carriers are in no hurry to eliminate the protocol.
FLEX, designed by Motorola Inc., offers increased capacity and speed, greater flexibility, improved data integrity, lower cost per user of any paging protocol and contributes to improved battery life, says the company. About 100 operators worldwide have adopted FLEX. The technology has been licensed to a dozen pager manufacturers, an equal number of network infrastructure suppliers, three chipset designers and about 20 test equipment companies.
The FLEX protocol offers a graceful migration path and co-exists easily with POCSAG, said Motorola. Operators need only upgrade rather than replace existing paging terminals and control equipment.
Nonetheless, for most U.S. carriers, the benefits of FLEX do not yet outweigh the relative inefficiencies of POCSAG (Post Office Code Standardization Advisory Group).
“I think POCSAG is dying a natural death. No one’s trying to kill it,” said PageMart Inc. spokeswoman Catarina Wylie.
Overall network capacity appears to be the leveraging factor dictating how urgently paging carriers migrate customers to FLEX technology.
PageMart, which introduced FLEX about 18 months ago, still carries a majority of POCSAG users. FLEX is installed on only one of the company’s two nationwide networks, which carries roughly 43 percent FLEX customers, said Jack Hansen, vice president of network operations.
About 60 percent of Paging Network Inc.’s customers use POCSAG pagers and service. MobileMedia Corp. carries a majority of POCSAG users. All three carriers said they own a substantial amount of spectrum and are at a comfortable reach from maximum capacity.
But “A lot of paging carriers out there don’t have new channels to add,” said Don Shirley, director of technology solutions for PageNet. FLEX offers capacity gains of 3 to 4 times over POCSAG, said Shirley.
Hansen said the network benefits from FLEX’s improved speed, but the speed difference is slight enough that it is not apparent to customers.
“Who’s benefiting the most is a carrier issue,” said Wylie.
Most carriers said their customers pay no more for FLEX than POCSAG. “The efficiency is ours,” said Shirley. He noted PageNet doesn’t profit on the sale of pagers. The revenue gain of signing up FLEX customers will be felt in the long-term, as more subscribers fit into less channel space.
PageNet’s direct sales force only sells FLEX pagers. New customers who own a POCSAG pager and want PageNet’s POCSAG service, still are provided the option from some PageNet resellers. PageMart continues to sell 2,400 baud POCSAG units, said Hansen. They are generally used units acquired on trade-in. MobileMedia continues to sell new POCSAG pagers. All new AirTouch Paging customers are FLEX customers, said spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg. Existing POCSAG customers stay on POCSAG unless they initiate a switch.
PageNet, however, does encourage customers to migrate from POCSAG to FLEX-based service. For instance, resellers are offered incentives to sell FLEX and customers are encouraged to trade in their POCSAG pager when a new FLEX pager is introduced by manufacturers, said Shirley. PageNet said migrating direct customers has been simple because most of those users lease their units.
Shirley expects at least 90 percent of its customers will be using FLEX by 2000, yet a small percentage will remain on POCSAG for quite awhile, including subscribers to SportsTrax, a broadcast feed for game plays and scores.
MobileMedia spokeswoman Anne-Marie Drozd said the company anticipates POCSAG will remain on its networks “for the foreseeable future.”
Shirley said PageNet will operate its POCSAG channels as long as it has commitments from POCSAG customers.
