Ed Note:  This column is maintained for historical purposes only.
The service described failed and stopped doing business shortly after this column was published.

Free Pager & Service

by Late Nite LeRoy

May 28, 2000

So you know you really should have a pager, but the $60 purchase cost and monthly fee was not justifiable for that occasional emergency. A possible answer resides at http://www.gozing.com/

If you can endure it beeping off up to 5 times a day with advertising messages, they will provide you with an alphanumeric Motorola PF 1500 pager and free service to keep it running. I should point out this is not a cheap throw away pager, but is 2 way with e-mail capability up to 60 characters. Since I also retail pager service at my commercial website, I should mention that toll free, operator assisted e-mail capable service for this quality pager runs about $250/year for local coverage or over $500/year for national coverage. You may have to use your own computer to send goZing emails though.

Typical ads will likely be fast food chains offering discounts for lunch. Just show your pager at the register and get your discount.

Now to an average adult, this does sound potentially annoying. But since teenagers are all gadget hounds, you might want to get one yourself, and loan it to Jr. to both let him use the fast food discounts and be able to keep in touch yourself. If you care to try it out, please say you were referred to: LNLEROY. Thank you.

LateNiteLeroy Webmaster at http://www.commutefaster.com E-mail directly to leroy@commutefaster.com