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http://www.skytel.com/

Our pager team carries Skytel pagers because they have guaranteed delivery SLAs. We have tried SMS with all of the major providers over the years and they cannot reliably deliver messages in a reasonable amount of time. It's the best option short of having a NOC staffed 24/7/365.

There are still pager providers. I have a pager from Skytel for work. http://www.skytel.com/wireless_paging_devices.html I've got a Titan 3 pager. It has a heinous alert tone that would be nearly impossible to sleep through.

At this point, Microsoft is stricly playing the shareholder game.

Appease the largest customer base, the enterprise, and focus on bad publicity, the security angle.

It appears that Microsoft is not the fun place it once was during the 95/98 era when competition was in full swing.

Microsoft no longer has the enthusiast OS crown it had back in the DOS days.
Vista is an incredibly complex (in the context of proprietary hooks and validation) piece of software that you have to be damn sure you want it installed on a certain piece of hardware before you load it up.

How many times have us older guys installed DOS to Win2K on multiple systems just to see if something worked and not really use that system anymore?
Can't do that with Vista. (OK, there is that 30 day grace period thing)

Microsoft says it wants to appease the hobbyist types (that is for the shareholder press releases) but with all the lockdown, all it's doing is being available to be used - something it doesn't want to do.
Microsoft wants Windows to be used for specific tasks, not be available at a hobbyists whim.

I remember setting up an old Win95 system some 10 years ago with some Bitware Fax software that came with a modem and I set that up as my Fax machine.
The system also recorded messages and had a SkyTel messaging system that was part of the suite.
I had a SkyTel pager at the time so that was cool and everytime I had a fax or message, I received a page with the caller ID and wether or not there was a voice or fax with it. Of course I could remotely retrieve the message and/or fax and it proved to be very useful.

Would I do it now if I had to ante up first? No way.
If I had to pay for it, it would have been worth under $70 to me to shell out. I paid something like $35 for the modem and that software made it very well worth it.

If I had to, I could have run the software on my primary machine but I didn't want to.
I had an older machine and I could let that machine just be a fax machine without compromising my machine.
Vista (and XP for that matter) stops that type of mentality and that is what Microsoft wants. Planned usage.

None of the places you mention as "remote" are more than a couple hundred miles from Seattle. A conventional satellite paging system with a North American footprint should do you fine; fifteen years ago when I had a boss who wanted to be able to get me out of bed wherever I was, he made me carry a SkyPager.

Sheesh. Kids these days...

Good call on #1, but with respect to #2, you must be part of the News that Raging Chipmunk was talking about. aGPS does not use the cell network to triangulate handset position. aGPS enabled handsets get *assistance* from the cell network in order to enhance GPS function by providing ephemeris data. This decreases time-to-first-fix (important when calling 911) and improves GPS function in poor reception situations. My understanding of how this works is that the cell network tells the phone the identification and location of the satellites that should be in view (it can do this since the cell site and handset are, obviously, in the same general area). This is faster than making the phone figure this all out on its own. See http://www.skytel.com/products/Assisted_GPS.pdf for a very basic explination of aGPS.

No, they don't. Most inexpensive pagers are one-way. The two-way pagers are significantly more expensive, at least for the equipment. Local or regional service is cheaper for one-way pagers, but two-way pagers are less expensive for national coverage. The reason: a two-way pager "checks in" with the local system, so the page is only broadcast in one location, vs. throughout the entire US.

I have a Motorola Talkabout with Skytel service. I probably won't carry it much longer, as US-wide SMS service is finally becoming reliable enough that I can depend on it for messages.

I like the idea of a "wireless" watch -- especially on those days when I forget my cell phone/pager, or the battery wears out, or there is no coverage... But, this is nothing new, in fact you can get a watch like this already http://www.skytel.com/products/shop_timex.htm $99 for the watch and one year of unlimited service. Oh yeah... the network has already been built and paid for - you can't get much cheaper than that! Of course this is the "traditional" one-way pager, now a two way pager in a watch - that would be cool! (note, same as above - network already built....).

This and this (last item) very impressive and definately totally new and original and no-one has ever considered this before. Not these people bet it wouldn't occur to them in a millon years.

Oh and of course there are lots of mobile phone that do this already as well.

It is a watch from Timex that receives pages (and Yahoo! instant messages). Works via skytel. My main problem is that I hate carrying around my pager, and I don't necessarily have it with me when it goes off. If I had a pager that was a wrist-watch, it would have that problem.

I used a SkyTel pager for a few years. The technology was fine, but the customer service sucked so hard that you could just call their 800 number, put the phone handset in a bell jar, and create a laboratory-grade vacuum in under a minute. I may have received a bill that was correct once, but if so, it was by accident.

I eventually just got a PCS cellphone, and pretty much ignore the cellphone part. It's cheaper and it seems to work just as well.

I also hear good things about the blackberry but I haven't had a chance to try it myself yet.

The smaller size is achieved by using a 'soft keyboard', which is much easier to use than it appears at first glance.

It has an IRDA port which allows you to compose and receive messages on your Palm PDA. They also have a Springboard module for the Visor PDA, called the ActiveLink.

Service is provided by Skytel, Worldcom and Weblink Wireless.

No Web browsing with a device this size, but I can request stock quotes, weather, news, movie showtimes, driving directions, traffic information etc., etc. from the device.

Have a look at SkyTel and the Motorola PageWriter 2000X. It's got TONS of ram (for a pager) that lets you add many applications and even games. If you do like RIMs, they offer service with RIM pagers as well. You can browse the web and recieve and send emails, and with WolfeTech service and their app, you can get movie times, etc. And you can customize your news reports to get quite a few updates a day or one or two summaries of the top stories (or even none). I have a PageWriter through work and espically for the quick "Yes" or "No" answers to questions for co-workers in offices in other states, it beats calling on the phone.