Re: OT: pagers/phones

["Derek J. Balling" <dredd () megacity org>]

At 4:00 PM -0500 12/14/00, Charles Sprickman wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is anyone using TAP-based paging software with any of the major two-way
> pager companies or any cell phones that have paging features?
>
> Specifically we were looking at PageMart 2-ways, SprintPCS, and Nextel.
> Any other suggestions are more than welcome.  The only thing we are NOT
> interested in is any email-based paging (doesn't work too well if the
> internet is 'broken').
>
> Qpage.org lists all three of those providers as having a TAP number, but
> they all deny any knowledge of such a thing.
>
> We are dropping PageNet, as they have no unlimited plans, yanked service
> without notice, and charge $.25/page past the limit.
>
> Thanks in advance, and apologies if this is not an "operational" issue,

I have used qpage successfully with both my SprintPCS phone and with other
other employees' Nextel phones. I haven't tried (that I can recall) any
PageMart pagers, but I have no doubt it'd work with them.

The concept of TAP is such that you will have to dig through about three
tiers of tech support until you at least get to a manager who has "heard of
it", and even then you'll be lucky if you get useful info.

Be aware though (as we realized belatedly) that the TAP protocol has no
concept of "sender" so your 1.5/2.0-way pager owners will be unable to
reply to messages. So if you happen to gateway "username () page company com"
to a TAP gateway to go to your pager-holders, they'll be annoyed that they
can't reply. This is either a bug or a feature depending on if you're the
person who pages the airtime bills.  (Apparently, when you use PagerCo's
e-mail gateway, they play some nifty games to attach a "From" field to the
packets going to the pager. How, I do not know, and suspect that if I found
out, "they'd have to kill me". ;)

If you need more info, contact me offlist and I'll be happy to oblige.

D