Home
Up

 

PAGING 101

At Authorized Wireless, we want to make your wireless messaging easy. That's why we've developed a list of messaging terms and concepts to help you understand your wireless messaging service even better.

Terms - Words that are used often in the wireless messaging industry.
Concepts - How wireless messaging works.
Industry Facts - Information about the wireless messaging industry.
Industry Links - Places where you can find more information about wireless messaging.

Terms
Concepts - How Wireless Messaging Works
Sending the message
Important Differences in Transmission Systems
Industry Facts
Industry Links

TERMS

Alphanumeric - A term used to denote a paging device equipped to receive both numeric and word messages.

Advanced Messaging - Wireless messaging services that support 2-Way messaging, extended word messages, Assured Messaging, pre-programmed responses, as well as notification of receipt of voice mail, e-mail and fax.

Digital - A digital signal, used by Authorized Wireless's two-way network, is composed only of electrical pulses representing either zero or one. Digital encoding increases the amount of messages that can be transmitted over a given radio frequency. And because they are digital, even if the message is garbled, the original information content can be perfectly replicated at the receiving end.

FLEX - Motorola's flexible high-speed paging coding scheme.

Frequency - Assigned channel space within the radio wave spectrum.

Numeric Display - The display of numbers on your paging device.

Paging - To deliver a message to someone when his or her location is unknown, generally through a wireless device known as a pager. (Other devices are rapidly emerging.) This has broadened the reach of the industry to a variety of wireless messaging opportunities.

Narrowband Personal Communications Services (NPCS) - A new generation of digital, 2-Way, low-powered wireless services that support a wide range of services including wireless messaging, voice messaging, e-mail, data file transfer, broadcast and fax.

ReFLEX - New 2-Way wireless messaging protocol developed by Motorola for advanced messaging services.

RF - Radio Frequency

Terminal - This is a computer controlled switching system that accepts calls from the telephone network and controls the base stations used to signal paging devices. The software in the terminal dictates many of the capabilities of the device.

Transmitter - A piece of equipment that generates radio waves and sends them to the antenna.

CONCEPTS - How Wireless Messaging Works

Every paging device is programmed to work with one, and only one, wireless messaging company. The reason is simple. Companies are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to transmit their messages on a specific frequency. Theoretically, every company should operate over their own exclusive frequency, but there are complicating factors. Most wireless messaging companies that operate nationwide built their systems through mergers or acquisitions of small city-wide and regional wireless companies. So, while they may have nationwide operations, in actuality these companies operate over multiple frequencies. Why is that worth noting?

It means that an individual paging device may not work everywhere that wireless messaging company offers service. Considering the mobility of today's consumers and business professionals, complications like this are problematic. If a subscriber travels outside a specific coverage area, or moves, a new device may be required or the old one may need to be re-crystallized, a process that requires the pager be brought to a service location to be manually reprogrammed.

Only a few wireless messaging companies operate a nationwide frequency, and fewer still use a common frequency throughout their entire nationwide system. A common frequency system offers the consumer the most flexibility because it allows a subscriber to use the same paging device anywhere throughout the company's coverage areas with any combination of coverage plans, as well as allows them to change coverage options at will.

SENDING THE MESSAGE

Every paging system consists of four basic components - the telephone network, a wireless messaging terminal, transmitter control equipment and a paging device. Sending a wireless message is easy. To send a simple numeric page, all you need is a touch-tone phone. Word messages can be sent in a variety of ways - via e-mail, over the Internet from a website, with the help of a dispatch operator, with a PC equipped with a modem and low-cost paging software, or with a keyboard phone such as Motorola's WordSender.

Once sent, the message travels throughout the telephone network to the wireless messaging terminal. The terminal accepts the message, verifies the validity of the pager number, checks its database for the subscriber's correct paging address, and converts the message into the appropriate signal protocol. The signal is then sent to the transmitters through the paging control system. Once it reaches the transmitters, the signal is broadcast, using a specific frequency, to the subscriber's paging device.

IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES IN TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS

There are three basic transmission systems in use in the wireless industry. The majority of wireless messaging service providers are still using traditional radio control systems where the signal is first sent to a main transmitter, then through a series of repeaters, until it reaches all the transmitters in the coverage area. The signal is then broadcast from all the transmitters simultaneously. Because all the transmitters are linked to the main transmitter, however, if that one fails, the entire local system may be affected.

Conventional satellite systems are really just a variation on radio control link systems. While they use satellite communications to send the paging signal from city to city, the satellite really only replaces the telephone network component. Once the signal reaches a local market, it is broadcast to the local transmitters over a traditional radio control link system.

The industry's most advanced nationwide wireless messaging networks - such as the one used by Authorized Wireless - use a direct broadcast satellite system. In this system, the signal is sent from the terminal to a satellite up-link station then on to the satellite. Once the satellite receives the signal, it is beamed back to earth to a satellite receiver located at each transmitter site. The signal is then simulcast to every transmitter within the subscriber's specified coverage area, whether it's local, regional, statewide or nationwide. From a technical perspective, the simplicity of this type of transmission system is advantageous because there is no degradation of the signal and each transmitter operates independently. That means if one site fails, it does not adversely affect others within the system. Thus, subscribers will still receive their messages.

INDUSTRY FACTS

  • More data is sent over the paging infrastructure than by all other forms of mobile data communications combined.

  • Wireless messaging is one of the fastest-growing segments of the telecommunications industry.

  • Wireless data users will grow from about 170 million subscribers worldwide in 2000 to greater than 1.3 billion in 2004.

  • By 2004, paging networks in North America will continue to provide the broadest building and geographic coverage of any mobile or fixed wireless technology.

  • Demand for word messaging is growing at twice the rate of numeric paging. A similar trend is occurring in demand for increased coverage. Demand for wide-area coverage is growing at twice the rate as local coverage.

  • One of the hottest emerging paging applications is the wireless delivery of electronic mail. Little wonder since nearly 75 percent of U.S. professionals now spend more than 20 percent of their time away from the office.

  • There are more than 600 wireless messaging companies operating in the United States; of that number, the top 30 companies constitute 95 percent of the business.