The current status of two way paging

So every now and again, I decide to use paging devices for my business and personal life.   Most people that had pagers ten years ago use cellular phones by now.  However, there are still paging companies that provide service.  The major players now are American Messaging and USA Mobility.

First, American Messaging:  They are my provider of choice, as they bought many of the former Bell Atlantic Mobile / Verizon paging networks.  Ten years ago, Bell Atlantic Mobile/Verizon had in my opinion the best coverage and most cohesive cellular and paging networks in New England, which is where I live.  If you are looking for alphanumeric (text) paging, their 929.9375 national frequency works very well around here.  They are now reselling the Skytel 2-way network on 940.2250.  I was trying this out, as I’m looking for a backup to text messaging.  The receive coverage vs. their coverage maps is pretty accurate, but sometimes a little spotty.  Their reverse channel is working pretty well at my house, which was not always the case about 8 years ago.  There must have been some improvements made to this in my area.

Lastly, USA Mobility:  I am trying their two way service out, on frequency 940.8625.  So far, the receive coverage is good, but the transmit coverage is not so good.  I am not quite in the two-way coverage map, so this is understandable.  I’m using a reseller of theirs for my trial, mysecretaryusa.com.  They provide very low cost plans and pagers.

Why paging?  I can see more people just using text messaging and SMS, which in most cases will work fine.  One of the advantages of paging is that their networks have been proven to not suffer overload during a disaster.  Part of this is probably due to less users, but it is also because the system is optimized for short messages and efficiency.

In short, I’d recommend two way paging as a backup for your cell phone, especially if you want a technology separate from cell phones to communicate if the networks get overloaded.  I would suggest trying both companies, as I’ve noticed along the East Coast, American Messaging/Skytel would have a little more coverage, and some places in the Midwest/West USA Mobility may have better coverage.

As far as equipment, I’d recommend the M90 by Unication if it is available for your network.  This device has a Lithium ion  rechargeable battery, which is good because it will provide consistent power for the transmitter.  The older T900s use an internal NiCD charged by a AA cell.  The advantage to the T900s or the Unication equivalent is that in a disaster situation, you could just pop another AA battery in when the power gets low.   In both cases, many times walking outside with the pager will make it possible to send a message.  The ability to send a message is very difficult indoors, unless you are very close to the receivers, which I believe are located close to major cities.

Will paging still be around for much longer?  I don’t think there is an easy question, but seeing the advertising that the paging companies are doing with long range coasters for restaurants that use their frequencies, I have a feeling they will be around awhile.  I noticed Skytel is trying to market their two way services for meter reading and telemetry.  I think as long as they can hang on to their business customers, two way ReFLEX networks will be around.