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SCMP Reporter

Motorola expects its new Flex protocol pager service to shepherd in the next generation of high-speed and increased capacity paging systems.

Motorola recently announced the introduction of the new Flex paging protocol to the Hong Kong market.

Flex brings high speed and high capacity paging technology, satisfying local customers appetite for more sophisticated technical products and services.

Eddie Kwok, Motorola Asia Pacific regional sales manager, said the new technology was first launched locally by Hong Kong Telecom CSL.

    'But with Motorola coming into the market it will give the customer much more opportunity,' he said.

  Hong Kong and China accounted for eight per cent of Motorola's total 1994 revenue of US$2.2 billion (HK$17.6 billion) dollars.

  Motorola expects the Hong Kong pager market to grow at about 15 per cent per year.

  With the growth in the number of pager users is a commensurate expansion in the number of paging services, which has greatly helped Motorola.

  There are currently more than twenty-five paging companies operating in Hong Kong, the top three being Hutchison Paging, Star Paging and ABC Paging.

   Hutchison Paging said last February that it handled about 1.5 million calls per day. Indeed, Motorola formerly had an exclusive supply agreement with Hutchison Paging.

   Mr Kwok said telecommunications technology was advancing fast, and customers had increasingly high expectations for telecommunications products and services.

   As more and more people took advantage of the convenience of paging, the existing paging protocol would soon reach saturation.

  Looking towards the future, Motorola has developed high-speed paging and is introducing the Flex protocol system to meet the needs of the market.

    Hongkong Telecom CSL is the first to introduce Motorola's Flex technology here. Cynthia Leung, public relations executive of Hong Kong Telecom CSL, said: 'Motorola is the world's leading supplier of advanced mobile communications products and we are glad to be able to work with such a strong partner to bring the latest paging technology to the Hong Kong market.'   She said that CSL was looking at launching the Flex system with Motorola, based on the new technology, in the middle of the year, as they believed there was still great potential in the local paging market.

   'We will continue to expand our paging business,' said Ms Leung.

  'The launch of the Flex paging system will bring new innovative services to our customers. At the same time, it will move the market to a new, even more competitive, level.'   The Flex technology gives many benefits to the service provider such as increased capacity and error correction.

    These benefits should make it possible for the service provider to offer better messaging units or pagers.

This will decrease the cost which it is hoped will be passed on to the customer.

  Some of the customer benefits this messaging unit can offer is more economical battery consumption and a wider choice of models, some in the form of watches.

   Mr Kwok said expanding on the existing technology and providing pager coverage in the MTR and other secluded areas were priorities.

  'When you look at the amount of band width already covered by existing paging units, it seems likely that there will be expansion of existing infrastructure and provision of coverage in places like the underground,' said Mr Kwok.

  'But this also depends on the service providers and whether they want to provide this sort of coverage to the customer.'   He said that the Flex protocol could offer better underground coverage than the protocol of existing pagers. CSL and other service providers would aim to achieve underground coverage in the near future.

  Motorola launched this Flex technology in Hong Kong after carrying out extensive research, which showedthat the local customer and service providers were willing to accept new technology and products as the market expanded.

     This research was used to help the company's expansion into China and other emerging markets. However, different market plans would have to be adopted due to differences in culture and market forces.



Motorola goes for protocol