How Reliable are Cell Phones?
Cellular phones and pagers are part of the "now" generation, measure contact, anywhere at any instant. People are looking for convenience, comfort and security. The question is how instantaneous and reliable is the contact?

Talking with someone is the main use for a cell phone, yet due to poor reception how almost always do calls not go through, or important calls "dropped" due to flaky coverage? Let us not lose your memory , that in a instant of tragedy, lines we are congested and the resounding "all circuits busy" messages were heard from coast to coast. There is certainly room for improvement if you want to reach out and touch someone.

The alternative to voice communication is traditional writing messaging, enjoyed by the young as SMS, a hip communication method, and the older as the tried and true paging, a trustworthy means of communication. A carrier gains pages or writing messages via a traditional dial up modem or Internet connection to their terminal, and then broadcasts the messages over their network to the appropriate wireless device. How time is sending a text communication ? The answer might surprise you...it depends.

Traditional means of sending writing messages is surprisingly reliable and fast. However, many cellular carriers, wishing to merge technologies while keeping costs down, have opted to utilize electronic mail technology to send writing messages. Why not, an email is nothing more than a text communication , using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). On the surface this sounds like a nice idea, nearly everyone has e-mail access, and the use of the Internet streamlines the sending of messages.

What is commonly overlooked, is the fact that electronic mail was not planned to be instant sensitive. There could be significant delays and an instantaneous receipt could be lost when sending email to a pager or cell phone. Text messages sent via the email protocol SMTP could take a more scenic delivery route. While in many cases, receiving messages in a timely fashion is not critical; some industries require and benefit from the receipt of urgent messages. It is therefore important to realize and build a distinction between the protocols that are designed for instantaneous communication and those that are not.

If sending messages immediately to a cell phone or pager is required, more reliable protocols are available. When sending writing messages, via a modem, the Telocator Alphanumeric Protocol (TAP) is extremely dependable, albeit slower due to the modem dialing. If sending messages with a high-speed Internet connection make use of the newer instant sensitive Internet protocols: Simple Network Paging Protocol (SNPP) and Wireless Communication Transfer Protocol (WCTP). If your carrier supports these protocols they are the better options for sending important messages.

If carriers understand the "now" generation is about speed and reliability, customer satisfaction will improve. Text messaging is a reliable and useful communication method, especially since voice is not always convenient or possible. With public awareness and urging, carriers will increase their offerings of writing messaging protocols. Carriers should offer electronic mail or SMTP, but they must also support instant sensitive protocols, regardless, of whether the protocols are older such as TAP or newer such as WCTP.

Resources -
Carriers supporting SNPP - http://www.notepage.net/snpp.htm
Carriers supporting WCTP - http://www.notepage.net/wctp.htm