NEW YORK-In what its chief executive, Gordon Kaiser, is calling a first, Cue Network Corp., Irvine, Calif., announced it will offer voice paging over FM subcarrier channels by mid-1998.
Another first, according to Kaiser, is that the voice paging services will use Data Radio Channel, or DARC, a high-capacity protocol originally developed by NHK in Tokyo and adopted by several European countries. DARC is an International Telecommunications Union standard. Cue and InfoTelecom of Strasbourg, France, jointly developed the DARC paging application.
The voice paging services using DARC will be deployed over a new high-speed network that Cue is rolling out. “DARC has now become the standard high-speed FM subcarrier technology around the world, and Cue intends to develop a DARC network across North America,” Kaiser said.
Cue Network, doing business as Cue Paging Corp., will offer the new option as part of a suite of services made possible by its support of the Microsoft Corp. CE 2.0 platform for handheld devices.
“The Windows CE device will become the portable answering machine of the future,” Kaiser predicted.
Subscribers using Cue’s new FM card, “a miniature radio card that fits in a standard PCMCIA form factor,” will have access to voice and text paging and e-mail and voice-mail alerts, Kaiser said. In a cooperative effort with ETAK Inc., a Menlo Park, Calif., provider of digital map data, Cue also plans to offer its new FM card customers real-time traffic information in 40 major markets.
“Purchasers of Windows CE devices will want real-time traffic information as well as e-mail alerts with notification of subject and sender,” Kaiser said. “People are tired of lugging laptops around just to get e-mail.”
Cue provides nationwide and regional messaging throughout North America over the FM subcarrier facilities of more than 600 radio stations. Its network provides a seamless footprint covering more than 2 million square miles and serves more than 180,000 subscribers. Distributors of Cue Paging include AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Ameritech Corp. and MobileMedia Corp.
Cue also disseminates real-time differential global position correction data and real-time traffic information over its North American network. The Federal Highway Administration has awarded Cue grants to install experimental systems in California and Texas.
“The real-time service that will commence in the second quarter of next year is the first time (this kind of) commercial or subscription service has been distributed over (an) FM subcarrier,” Kaiser said.
