Paging Fills Service Gap

Although agreements between paging carriers and cellular and PCS carriers hardly represent a new concept, recent agreements add a new dimension.

For example, PageMart Wireless has signed an agreement with BellSouth for distribution of PageMart's 11/2-way, assured delivery service. Although the agreement technically is with BellSouth Cellular, it applies to all BellSouth affiliates, said John Jenkins, BellSouth Cellular director of paging.

"We don't have anything between the Interactive pager and no paging at all, so we're using the resale business to fill in that space," Jenkins said -- a space that customers consistently have requested be filled.

"They are voting with their dollars, because we are selling a fair amount of it," Jenkins said.

Although PageMart is gearing up to offer a full-blown 2-way service on its ReFlex network, BellSouth plans to stop at 11/2-way services, and Jenkins said the two companies haven't agreed on their relative positions regarding 2-way service.

"Although PageMart has invested quite a bit in the network, and it's a state-of-the-art, 2-way network, we don't believe that it is in BellSouth's best interest to sell that product, when we have our own Mobitex network," Jenkins said.

Sprint PCS also is reselling paging service. It has an ongoing agreement with PageNet and also has struck a deal with PageMart, extending 1-way paging distribution. According to Andrew Sukawaty, Sprint PCS president & COO, the company has no plans to resell 2-way service. He said 2-way is a push-oriented sell and requires a large sales force to sell it successfully. The big market continues to be in a paging-PCS combo.

Andrew Seybold, Andrew Seybold's Outlook editor-in-chief, suggested that carriers take these agreements a step further.

Tie the back end of the PCS or cellular system into the back of the paging system so that if the subscriber's phone is turned off, the alternate way of notifying him is to go over the PageMart paging network, Seybold said.

"When you figure that paging has much better coverage than any cellular carrier, just by nature of the beast, the combination of a good cellular system with paging backup for messaging and notification is a very valuable tool," he said.