Link Telecommunications of Australia is gearing up to launch a two-way messaging network in Sydney, using technology supplied by Nexus Telecommunications Ltd. of Israel.
The system trials began in the third quarter of last year and are expected to culminate by the end of this month. Link plans to launch commercial service in April in Sydney and in May and June in other major cites, subject to results of the trials.
About 40 individuals and companies have participated in the trials, said Jeff Peck, national field engineering manager for Link.
He said the company is targeting corporate paging users that need a guaranteed message receipt feature. Link will market the service primarily through direct corporate sales teams, noted Peck.
Nexus’ technology is designed as an add-on system to current one-way paging networks. The system runs outbound traffic in the 148 MHz VHF frequency band. The return channel is in the Industrial, Science and Medical band.
Using this piggy-back protocol, carriers can save money on building out a network and by not paying for spectrum.
INC is Nexus’ agent in Australia and is providing network infrastructure for the two-way system.
Samsung Corp. is the exclusive supplier of pagers based on Nexus’ technology. Users can acknowledge text messages with 16 preprogrammed responses or create a new reply by modifying the stored messages.
Prices for the pagers and service should be decided by the end of the month, noted Peck. In the United States, the Samsung units are marketed as TAG, and will retail for under $200 or can be leased at a monthly rate.
Based in Melbourne, Link is owned by Terry Winters, also director and chief executive officer of the company. The company provides call center services, telephony services to corporate and small business clients, nationwide numeric and alphanumeric paging services and sells Global System for Mobile communications-based handsets.
