Following an unannounced soft launch in November, Conxus Communications Inc. announced its
long-awaited Pocketext text-messaging service is being rolled out market-by-market nationwide.
The company
began the service late last year in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington D.C./Baltimore. In the coming
months, Conxus said it plans to add the Florida markets of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Tampa/St.
Petersburg; as well as Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, and the California markets of Los Angeles, San Francisco and
San Jose.
Pocketext uses Conxus’ existing InFLEXion-based voice paging network to deliver text, e-mail and
numeric messages. The company’s voice paging service, Pocketalk, has attracted more than 80,000 subscribers,
according to the company.
“Customer satisfaction with Pocketalk is very high and it’s now time for us to offer
the same dependable message delivery and system reliability in the text messaging arena,” said Bill deKay,
president of Conxus. “This service introduction fulfills our initial intentions of being a voice and data company
while allowing our customers to utilize the Internet to complete their messaging needs.”
The Pocketext
network operates on the ReFLEX protocol and uses the same infrastructure as Conxus’ InFLEXion-based voice paging
service. According to Mark Judge, senior vice president of marketing and business development at Conxus, no new
construction was required to allow text messaging, just a software upgrade.
“It’s something that I think is
often overlooked … InFLEXion has been dubbed a voice-only protocol, where in fact, ReFLEX 25 is a fundamental
building block of InFLEXion,” he said. “If you are broadcasting InFLEXion, you are automatically
broadcasting ReFLEX 25.”
Because both InFLEXion and ReFLEX are two-way technologies, Pocketext is a
guaranteed messaging service in which the pager registers its location with the network so messages can be stored
when the device is not on or out of service. Judge said a fully interactive two-way service will be available “just
as soon as the products become available to the ReFLEX 25 world.”
Both protocols were developed by
Motorola Inc.
Eventually, Judge said the company may offer a combined voice/text paging service. A device able to
accept both types of service would have to be manufactured.
Judge told RCR the Pocketext network is different than
other two-way networks because it has the same number of receivers as transceivers.
“Our outbound and
inbound coverage is balanced,” he said. “If you’re in coverage, you’re in coverage for one-way, 1.5-way or
two-way.”
In some networks, full service coverage is limited because there are fewer receivers to accept
transmissions from the pager than transmitters sending messages to the device, meaning outbound coverage is greater
than the inbound.
Customers can use the pager’s transmission functions only in areas where the network has
receivers. In areas where the network has no receivers, customers will have basic-or partial-service only, meaning they
can only accept messages, not send them. In cases of guaranteed messaging, it means the pagers still will accept
messages, but there will be no receipt confirmation or network registration.
This is why some carriers’ coverage
maps show different shades of coverage, detailing which areas have full two-way coverage and which have only basic
one-way coverage.
While Conxus will continue to tout its balanced network, Judge conceded that some instances of
partial coverage will occur.
“We all have to be realistic. In any network coverage footprint, there’s going to be
an edge,” he said, and instances of fringe coverage may appear at those edges.
As such, Judge said Conxus
has opted to make use of the “Full Service” and “Basic Service” warnings available on both the
subscriber devices, which notify subscribers when they are in full service areas and when they are in partial service
areas.
The Pocketext Web site features a “frequently asked questions” page that details the various
levels of service, and how subscribers can determine when they are in full or partial service areas.
Until the service
extends full two-way interactive capabilities, Judge said he doesn’t believe the issue will be of much
importance.
“The nuance of difference between our network and the other ReFLEX 50 and 25 networks is
that much of this is almost irrelevant in the 1.5-way mode. When you get to two-way … you see pretty quickly that the
outbound and inbound coverage is much, much different. That is when this comes into play,” he said.
The
company said subscriber devices will retail for $180 and listed several pricing packages. For $20 a month, subscribers
can get unlimited messages of up to 100 characters, as well as operator-assisted dispatch service and voice mail. For
just unlimited messages of 100 characters each, the rate is $13. Other plans include $28 a month for 500 character
messaging and $33 a month for 800 character messaging. All require a $15 activation fee.
The network
infrastructure was provided by Motorola and Glenayre Technologies Inc., both of which also will provide pagers.
Glenayre’s AccessLink II is in circulation now, and Judge said he expects Motorola’s PageFinder to be introduced to
subscribers in the future.
When asked if Conxus experienced any delays in AccessLink II deliveries-as Glenayre
recently reported difficulty in fulfilling shipment orders of the device-Judge replied “not that has affected us
commercially.”
The Internet gateway for e-mail delivery is provided by RTS’ Advantage Internet Gateway.
