BellSouth Wireless Data L.P. marks its re-entry into the paging market this week with the commercial debut of its two-way Interactive Paging Service.
The service uses the new Inter@ctive 950 pager designed by Research In Motion. RIM’s wearable, two-way pager features a variety of improvements on the first-generation model-namely, its size was reduced by half, the battery life was tripled and new e-mail capabilities were added, allowing users to view and enter subject lines, as well as send and receive messages of up to 16,000 characters, or 2,700 words.
BellSouth is offering the two-way messaging service over its Mobitex packet data network, recently enhanced by L.M. Ericsson to provide coverage comparable to one-way paging networks in the largest 266 metropolitan statistical areas of the country.
The service also includes free, seamless, automatic roaming nationwide, said Bill Lenahan, BellSouth Wireless Data president and chief executive officer.
Interactive Paging Service provides several messaging options, including the ability to send messages from the Inter@ctive 950 to any Internet e-mail address, fax machine, other Inter@ctive pager or telephone. The service allows users to enter a text message that can be “read” in an electronic voice when the phone is answered.
The device also saves messages while it is turned off so they can be retrieved later when the pager is turned back on. Interactive paging also offers guaranteed messaging, which notifies the message sender twice-once when the device gets the message and again when the user reads the message.
Industry insiders who got a sneak peek at the Inter@ctive 950 and the two-way service are hailing its convenience and ease of use. “I was not a believer in two-way (messaging) until I started using the device myself,” said Darryl Sterling, a paging analyst with the Yankee Group in Boston. “[Inter@ctive] has evolved to be a way to communicate among a small group.”
BellSouth’s strategy is focused on the enterprise environment and targets Fortune 1,000 customers. The service is ideal for business customers and mobile employees who need real-time information, Lenahan said.
“I never carried a pager before, but I do now,” said Lenahan, adding his cellular phone bill was reduced from $400 a month to $50.
Toronto Dominion, New York, compared BellSouth’s new simulcast service offering with SkyTel Corp.’s PageWriter 2000 point-to-point service, stating while BellSouth’s RAM network provides a faster response time, it trades off in-building penetration capabilities.
“We have maintained that the lifeblood and growth potential of the paging industry rests in its ability to offer subscribers higher utility, value-added content applications as basic low-end paging services are increasingly being bundled into broadband offerings.
“We view BellSouth’s re-entry into the messaging arena as a confirmation of the two-way category and a confirmation of SkyTel’s strategy,” Toronto Dominion said.
