Beeping Back

By JOSHUA QUITTNER

I tend to walk around these days saddled with so much stuff that I waddle like a plumber. Beeper, cell phone, personal digital assistant, laptop--sometimes I fantasize about Velcro-ing all my digitalia to bandoliers crisscrossing my chest: the Geek Rambo. Hasta la vista, baby, I say, dropping to my knees, ripping free a cell phone and speed-dialing a pizza to go...

Weren't we supposed to have "convergence" by now? The TV, telephone and computer were going to morph into one all-purpose computing, entertainment and communicating device. Instead we've got digital divergence--scores of ever smaller specialized gadgets that have insinuated themselves into our once uncluttered lives. The latest example: two-way pagers.

The companies that sell beepers have been going through a rough spell, according to the Wall Street Journal. Service is getting too cheap, and profit margins are shrinking. Worse, who needs a beeper when most new cell phones come with a built-in pager? My phone, which is by no means extraordinary, even allows people to send me text messages or e-mail. The two-way pager--or enhanced pager--is supposed to save the messaging industry because it turns the once proud but dumb beeper into something that talks back.

"People are going to use this to control their environment," says John Stupka, CEO of Jackson, Miss.-based SkyTel, which boasts the nation's only advanced messaging network. (Others are being rolled out.) Stupka cited a survey showing that the average information worker handles on the order of 190 e-mail and voice messages a day. He argues that everyone will have to figure out ways to control that message flow. The two-way pager is a means to that end.

When I first saw the Motorola Pagewriter 2000, the most popular two-way device on the market, I fell in lust. The thing is slightly larger than a deck of cards and has a teensy but functional keyboard (you can set it so that it makes the cutest clicking noises when you type) and a very readable monochrome screen. The Pagewriter's main function is to send and receive e-mail on the same network that pagers use. Something about handling e-mail while on the fly--from the train, say, or even in the bathtub--appealed to me. I also liked the idea that I might be able to get rid of some of my electronic luggage.

But it was not to be. On the upside, the Pagewriter worked reasonably well. Most messages I sent were received within minutes from a variety of tricky locations. (The one exception was when I tried to send an e-mail from a train under Pennsylvania Station; the message was never delivered, though the Pagewriter claimed otherwise.) It was also cool to have news headlines and travel data, such as plane schedules, delivered to my gadget.

But the device was not for me. It costs $330--more if you want to buy the docking station to synch information with your desktop computer. And service starts at $30 a month for a low-volume user. Because of its limited functionality, the Pagewriter could not replace my laptop, PDA or cell phone. It would only upgrade my beeper--and since that's the smallest and cheapest of my toys, I plan to keep it on my bandolier.

For more on two-way paging, see time.com/personal E-mail Josh at [email protected] See him and Anita Hamilton on CNNfn's Digital Jam at 7:30 p.m. E.T. on Wednesdays.