Motorola Announces Significant Upgrade to ReFLEX Two-Way Messaging Protocol; Enhancement Helps Offer Improved Capabilities For Two-Way Paging Networks - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, Oct 25, 1999

Motorola, Inc., a leader in the wireless communications industry, Thursday announced a significant upgrade to ReFLEX, its two-way wireless transport protocol. The result is expected to bring greater cost-effectiveness and value to the wireless industry and consumers.

"As consumers have become more sophisticated in wireless communications, the need for additional information services(1), email notification(1) and reading, peer-to-peer communications, Internet access(1), confirmed message delivery(1) and vertical applications has increased dramatically," explained Bob Schwendeman, Vice President, Technical Staff and Director of Strategic Systems. "The demand for these services, coupled with products such as the PageWriter 2000X two-way wireless communications center, has stimulated growth in the two-way messaging industry. The existing ReFLEX protocol helps provide a solid foundation for enabling communications solutions to consumers. With this upgrade we are adding additional flexibility to help reduce deployment costs and open the door for new applications on existing networks."

Within the last year, the market has grown from one nationwide ReFLEX network to three; unit shipments have more than doubled and subscribers have grown to more than three-quarters of a million.

"All the major North American paging network operators have joined together and are investing in ReFLEX technology," Schwendeman continued. "Based on feedback from the network operators and our licensees, the upgrade is going to offer additional flexibility in the areas of reducing message waiting times, enhancing network interoperability and improving spectrum utilization while ensuring backwards compatibility with existing networks and subscriber devices."

This upgrade is part of Motorola's continuing commitment to improve the FLEX wireless architecture. A draft copy of the upgrade to the ReFLEX protocol specification is currently under review and the final version will be released by the end of this year.

Motorola's FLEX paging protocols include FLEX one-way and ReFLEX two-way technologies. In addition to the protocols, the FLEX technologies include the FLEX OS operating system, FLEXsuite developer tools, the FLEXscript programming language, software development kits, the FLEX messaging server and a variety of wireless application software packages.

The FLEX protocol, created by Motorola, is the de facto standard for high-speed paging.

Motorola is a global leader in providing integrated communications solutions and embedded electronic solutions. Sales in 1998 were $29.4 billion.

(1) Network and subscription dependent feature. Not available in all areas.