The disappearing BP machine opened the earliest innovation in personal wireless communication.
"Call me if you have something"!
In the 90s of the last century, this was an enviable phrase. Having a BP machine pinned to your waist marks that you have entered the era of personal wireless communication "very stylishly". But now, knowing the BP machine is already a matter of exposing age.
BP machine number 6 to 7 digits, the price is more than 1,000 yuan, plus the network access fee, number selection fee of nearly 2,000 yuan, and the monthly service fee is about 30 yuan, which is definitely not a small expense at the time when the per capita monthly income is only a few hundred. The BP machine not only became a status symbol, but also ushered in a new era of personal communication.
BP machine was first born in the United States in 1955 and entered the Chinese market in 1983. In the 90s of the 20th century, with the rapid development of electronic communication technology and China's socialist market economy, the public mobile communication represented by paging communication began to enter a stage of great development.
After the user caller dials the manual paging station 126 and 128 and the automatic paging station 127 with a fixed telephone, the receiver quickly calls back after receiving the message. In the era when mobile phones were not popularized, BP machines became the most effective means to solve personal instant communication.
In 1992, the Xizhimen Business Hall of Beijing Wireless Communication Bureau was opened. During the Spring Festival, the 126 paging station reached more than 10,000 paging times per hour, and the traffic agents were extremely busy. In December of the same year, at the beginning of the official release of the 127 paging station to users, there were many scenes of users queuing up to buy automatic pagers overnight in the Xizhimen business hall, and the users who purchased the machines even congested the road traffic in front of the hall.
In 1993, the State Council approved and forwarded the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications' "Circular on Further Strengthening the Management of the Telecommunications Business Market", opening up the operation of nine types of telecommunications services, including wireless paging, to the public, and social business units have since been allowed to enter the telecommunications business market. In 1994, 67 units and 77 paging stations were opened.
In 1995, China Unicom was approved by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications to obtain the special service numbers of "191" (manual radio paging service) and "192" (automatic radio paging service) of the radio paging network. It first carried out radio paging services in seven cities, including Beijing, Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou and Wuhan, and has since carried out business nationwide. It is worth mentioning that China Unicom found through market research that users pay more attention to the brand awareness of pagers, so Jiang Zhiming, the head of Unicom's paging business at that time, made a bold decision - advertising. No one in the telecommunications industry has ever filmed and run a TV commercial before, starting with Unicom Paging. The advertising effect of Unicom's paging business was so popular that people who didn't know much about China Unicom at the time thought that Unicom was a pager company. Due to the advantages of unified planning frequency, China Unicom has also realized remote paging networking. In 1996, China Unicom's paging network lasted one year, and Beijing Unicom, the first batch of Beijing Unicom companies approved to operate wireless paging services, reached more than 150,000 users by the beginning of 2002.
In 1995, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, the signing ceremony of the cooperation agreement on the construction of China Unicom paging network.
In 1995, China Unicom Paging Company signed a cooperation agreement with Singapore Telecommunications Corporation in Beijing. In 1998, the telecommunications enterprise was reformed, and Guoxin Paging Co., Ltd. was established. In May 1999, the Ministry of Information Industry incorporated Guoxin Paging Co., Ltd. into China Unicom. In July 2000, under the unified deployment of the state, China Unicom integrated the original Guoxin paging (126/127, 128/129, 198/199) to establish the wireless paging division, and became a part of China Unicom Co., Ltd., which was listed in the United States and Hong Kong. In the same year, the state issued the "Notice on Protecting the Safety of Aviation and Water Communications and Re-registering Wireless Paging Stations", which cleaned up some non-standard paging stations, and the number of social paging stations began to decrease. In August 2001, China Unicom realized the interconnection and information sharing between the 126/127 and 198/199 wireless paging networks and the 130 mobile phone network, and successfully launched the "Two Nets" service to the society.
China Unicom paging once had nearly 45 million online users in the country, with a market share of more than 60%, and the paging network reached all cities above the prefecture level in the country, and the 198 and 199 national network paging covered 300 cities above the prefecture level across the country. It can be said that Unicom paging was a well-deserved aircraft carrier in China's paging industry and the world's largest high-speed paging network. With the gradual popularization of mobile phone short message applications, its substitution has had a huge impact on the paging business. In 2002, the number of paging stations and the number of online users dropped sharply, and the paging service declined. In October 2003, the number of mobile phone users in China exceeded that of fixed telephone users for the first time, and the era of mobile communication officially began. By the end of 2004, there were very few paging users left.
From "you call me if you have something" to 5G messaging as a service, from the one-way reception of radio signals by BP machines to the F5G-A 10 Gigabit era, the mainland communication industry has undergone earth-shaking changes. Recently, China Unicom Beijing Branch released a gigabit all-optical popularization campaign, leading broadband network services into the "new" gigabit and "optical" Wi-Fi era. The pager has become a historical memory, and China Unicom will bring users a richer digital life and convenient communication experience at a new starting point.
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Written by: Cui Liangliang of Communication Industry News, Wang Huan of China Unicom
Picture: Beijing Unicom Sun Ben (taken at Beijing Communications and Telecommunications Museum) Part of the content is referenced from the WeChat public account of "Grass and Trees Annual Rings" Editor: Liang Liang Guidance: Xin Wen
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