PageOne Communications
PageOne is a British telecommunication company based in Brentford, London and operates one of the largest public paging networks in the UK. PageOne also provide hosted messaging services for mobile messaging and organisational communication.
PageOne was the first paging operator in Europe to use satellite links for the distribution of pager messages, the first company to link emails to pagers, the first to launch 'Calling Party pays' Pagers and helped pioneer the use of SMS technology as part of organisational communications. As of 2009, PageOne is the first and only organisation to run a 2-way paging network in the UK.
History
2009 - PageOne launch the UK's first 2-way paging service, including GPS location services and message read receipts.
2008 - 'Pulse' is launched to provide blue light emergency services with an exclusive free paging 'channel' that prioritises emergency services network traffic.
2007 - Paging is recognised as having provided an effective communications link during the London bomb attacks on the 7th July 2007. During the attacks GSM mobile phone networks suffered from network congestion that prevented calls being connected.
2005 - PageOne Acquires 'THComms', a specialist pager service and repair company.
2004 - In response to change in the consumer paging market, O2 shut down its paging operations and recommended its customers move to PageOne as the preferred transfer partner. The same year sees the launch of 'Connect', PageOne's flagship mobile messaging product that is later updated to Connect II in 2008.
2003 - PageOne is sold to the current group of shareholders and a new managing director, Chris Jones, is appointed.
2002 - In response to rapid online growth a new messaging platform, 'Oventus' is launched that facilitates the use of a web console to send messages.
1999 - The UK's first email to pager service is launched by Mercury Paging. This service allowed email to be received by mobile workers and individuals well before the release of WAP or other mobile data technologies became widely used.
1998 - A fourth UK paging channel is implemented which operates using the high speed FLEX protocol to provide greater traffic capacity.
1996 - Mercury Communications, Motorola and Mtel sell Mercury Paging to a US Management-Buy-In (MBI) Team backed by Chase Manhattan Bank. The organisation is re-branded under the new name 'PageOne Communications'.
1992 - Mercury Paging Ltd acquires Intercity Paging ltd. Intercity's owner, Mtel Corporation (US) becomes the third shareholder. In the same year Mercury Paging's paging network infrastructure underwent extensive investment with satellite distribution technology implemented nation-wide.
1990 - Using a single UK paging license, Mercury Paging commenced trading. A second UK paging channel was allocated in 1990.
1986 - PageOne Communications incorporated under its former name of Mercury Paging Ltd, its parent company, Mercury Communications being jointly owned by Cable and Wireless and Motorola.
Past Products
Mercury was the first UK organisation to launch a 'Calling Party Pays' (CPP) paging device called 'MiniCall' - it does not require a monthly subscription or contract, however is no longer actively marketed by PageOne.
Current Products
Paging
PageOne is the biggest paging service worldwide and is the only UK paging network operator that runs a two-way paging service. It is also the only UK network that operates a paging network where the infrastructure is kept separate to UK mobile phone networks.
2-way Paging Two-way pagers or '2-way pagers' receive messages via standard paging channels and include a SIM card to operate a GPRS data channel to transmit reply messages, along with location information that is obtained via GPS, back to the sender or control centre.
Hosted Messaging Services
PageOne are providers of hosted messaging accounts for the public and private sectors. These services are standalone or complementary to any UK paging system employed by an organisation. Messages that can be sent include SMS, email, MMS, fax and voice to international GSM networks, UK Pagers and Landlines.