IP: report on 2-way paging devices

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

I am a bit tardy in reporting my experiences with 2-Way "paging" ( a much
better term would be two way messaging).


I received the 2-Way pager produced by Motorola about 1 1/2  months ago.
Initially I had a lot of problems in that I was using it as part of my
"famous" integrated email/telephone/pager environment. As those of you who
communicate a lot with me I have used a combination of a text (one way)
pager along with the Motorola Envoy and my Motorola Star Tac plus TPS Call
Services electronic assistant to integrate my somewhat wandering life style. 


As I operate when I get a email from one of a specified set of people
(sons, wife, secretary and a few others) I send it to my pager. If a
message is marked page , it goes there also. 


When TSP's Electronic Secretary answers my phone, it emails my pager with
the number etc. (and also tries to find me via my cellular).


What does the 2-way give me -- the ability to answer a message from these
folks with a terse but informative answer -- like 1 hour late, etc. (the
sender can pick the answers or use the built in defaults).


what that gives you is the beginning of a valuable addition to the normally
one way world I was in. 


What were the problems. Most had to do with the integration (or lack
thereof) of the Sky tel network gateway into the way internet mail is used.
For example, they delete the subject line (many folk put the whole message
there on the net) or they used the wrong header field to say who it was
from. It took a while to get to the right people at Sky tel (namely those
how both knew the answers and would return email (Sky tel still does not
respond to their web technical support email service)).


Once I got to the right people, I got some work around and an assurance
that the main problems would soon be fixed so others don't have to hack.


As to the "pager" itself. The first one I got was the Motorola tango. It
has no capability of originating messages just receiving and replying to
them. Latter Sky tel loaned me a Wireless Access model which allows you to
create addresses (email and pin) and input short messages . Thus I can now
originate outbound messages -- like I missed the train. I gather Motorola
will shortly have that capability in their main line units (by the way look
at the Message Manager write up in
http://www.pcmag.com/news/trends/t960910a.htm -- I want one!!!)


Bottom line, the 2way is damn useful. It like my Startec hangs all the time
from my belt and has joined the Pilot as part of my -- never got away with
out it (well along with my credit cards).


Dave