Indiana paging network: mobile communications are changing, but the LaPorte-based company is still thriving.

• Author: Kaelble, Steve
• Position: Profile

WHEN IT COMES TO wireless communications, the cell-phone business seems to get the lion's share of attention, with all the focus on color camera phones, portable Web surfing and the like. Some may be surprised to learn that, amid this changing communications landscape, paging is alive and well, particularly at LaPorte-based Indiana Paging Network.

The fact is, there are many communications needs that paging serves better than any other technology. Indiana Paging Network has thrived by focusing its attention on those needs. And, its executives say, the company's local nature has allowed it to deliver technology and customer service unsurpassed by other providers.

Background in technology. It helps to have a techie at the helm. That would be Bill Eisele, the company's founder, owner and CEO. "I've been in the paging business since 1966. I was a pioneer in the paging business," he says. "I had an amateur radio when I was 14, and I was a radio intercept operator in the Air Force with top-secret clearance. and I worked in broadcasting, at AM and FM radio stations."

His radio work was on the engineering side, and back in the '60s while he was working for WJOB in Hammond he happened across a paging operation that used the radio station's tower to transmit its pages to customers. Eisele was intrigued, and eventually acquired the paging operation.

He brought his technical know-how to Indiana Paging Network, which he launched in 1986. To this day his greatest occupational passion remains the nuts and bolts of the operation, which has helped the company achieve exceptional reliability. "I have a whole different perspective" when it comes to network upkeep, he says. "We spend the money when we need to."

He's even avoided the pitfalls of some technologies that others viewed as progress. For example, Indiana Paging still maintains earth-based radio links between its dispatching system and the 140 transmitters that dot the state map. Others often rely on satellite, connections, which sounds impressive until there are satellite problems. That was the case a few years ago, Eisele says, when national disruptions in satellite service left other paging companies unable to serve customers, while Indiana Paging Network maintained business as usual. Eisele admits that his healthy skepticism about satellite connections is due in part to the fact that he can't lay his hands on the equipment if something goes wrong. "I can't go up and fix it; my airplane doesn't fly...