Mobile Computing

Hardware Devices

This information has been obtained from published material. It is  given to illustrate the different ways the providers
segment their markets and should not be used to make a purchase decision. Cost are as at late 1999.

 

Pagers Pagers are low cost, unobtrusive pocket devices for receiving and displaying text messages up to 220 characters. Pagers are very popular in the US, even with the owners of mobile phone, as they usually have to pay both to receive and to send calls via their mobile. Many respond to their pager messages by using payphones which are cheap and plentiful. In the UK pagers are less popular. This is probably due to the lack of working payphones, which are also expensive to use, and the low status of pagers which have traditionally been associated with service engineers. Persons wishing to send a message to a pager can use a number of methods, depending on the service provider: calling an operator and dictating the message typing the message on a PC which is then sent like an email. using a tone phone and selecting one of a number of standard messages (e.g. "please call the office"). BT market their BusinessContact messaging service, including the rental of a pager, for £200 for the first year and £140 p.a. thereafter. Calls made from normal phones cost approximately 5p each (more from payphones, mobiles and call made with chargecards). There is 98% coverage of the UK population. Dixons and other retailers sell low cost pagers from about £25 to £60 but the call charges are higher, sometimes as much as a £1 a message. Varying features are: Size, shape and colour - from black oblong to blue egg shaped. Number and size of display lines - from one 16 character line to two 20 character lines; with or without automatic scrolling. Number of messages stored - up to eight. Number and type of alerts - buzzing, musical sounds to vibrations. Free and/or pay services - e.g. Reuters news, pop news, e-mail notification.

Motorola's top of the range  CP1250 Pager can display 8 lines of text and up to 26 characters per line as well as graphics. In all it can store almost half million characters of text. It also has built-in alarm clock and vibrating alert, task list, and phone list.

Up is Hardware Devices;
Next is PDAs

External Resources
 

1. Phillips, Shaun, 2000, The Independent Test This Week: Pagers, The Independent, 26 January 2000.
2. Also see the full list of resources for this web site for other related resources.

[Mobile Phones] [Pagers] [PDAs] [Unusual and Futuristic Devices] 

[Mobile Computing Content] [Introduction] [Summary] [No. Customers] [US Scene] [European Scene]
[Delivery Channels] [Players] [Hardware] [Software] [Existing Services] [New Services] [Audience]
[Disadvantages] [Advantages] [Sceptics] [Advertising] [Financial Services]

[Mediums Overview] [SIM Report Mediums] [More Recent Developments] [Which to Use?] [Other Technologies]

[SIM Overview] [One to One Marketing] [Mass Customisation] [Interactive Mediums] [STEP Analysis]
 [SIM Executive Summary] [SIM Report] [SIM Project] [SIM Framework] [SIM Methodology] [SIM Illustrations] [SIM Links]

[Key Information & Resources] [Guest Contributions] [List of Support Topics] [What's On]

[Contact] [Company] [Disclaimer] [Privacy] [Legal] [Copyright Fair Use] [Feedback] [Publications]
[Publicity] [Why Ads?] [What's New] [What's Coming] [Technical Info]
 [Home] [Site Search Form]    [For a Full list of Contents see the Site Map]