At the start of airline flights you will now hear the flight attendant tell you not just to turn of your cellphones till you get to where you're going, but also to turn off two-way pagers. This reflects the growing popularity of this relatively new kind of pager. They go far beyond the old-fashioned beepers that most people are familiar with. Instead of just being good for one-way communication, you can write back, too -- as long as you like typing using your thumbs.

The most famous type of two-way pager is the Blackberry, a product used mainly by corporate types to keep track of their e-mail messages at meetings and while on the road. It directly accesses corporate e-mail and has become a must-have for road warriors everywhere. Of course, if you combine one with a cell phone, your boss or clients may not even know you are away from the office.

An innovation from Earthlink last year was to take the e-mail functions of the Blackberry and combine it with Web access -- a feature that many users of the original Blackberry felt was lacking. The EarthLink Mobile Internet Browser works well -- it isn't the full Web as you are used to on a PC, but you can get news and other important sites in a fast and easy-to-use format. Earthlink is now selling the Blackberry for $349 and the e-mail and Web service together for about $50 a month.

The Blackberry is clearly aimed at business users who need to be constantly in touch. But there are others who have taken to two-way paging in a big way: teens and non-business users who want to have fun and keep in touch. Instead of relying on it to access corporate e-mail, they use it to send short bursts of messages back and forth. One I have tested is the Motorola T900, which costs between $150-$200 (monthly service costs $15-20). It comes in hip colors and its size (no bigger than an old beeper) and price make it an alternative for those with smaller budgets and less ambition.

Resources:
Blackberry by Earthlink
Motorola T900

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