By Kristy Bassuener

What is the consumer's favorite word? The one most unmistakably, universally beloved is "free."

In recent months, retailers and manufacturers across the nation have teamed up to seduce consumers with more free stuff than ever imagined. Long-distance minutes--even PCs--can now be obtained gratis. Well, sort of.

Even "free" has a price. In many cases it's the willingness to endure advertising. Ads flash and spill onto desktops and across phone lines. And now onto paging networks.

The latest development in this trend in the paging industry is DSI Technology Inc.'s "totally free paging." DSI thinks that consumers who want free paging services and a free alphanumeric pager will be more than willing to scroll through some ads before each message. In fact, they're banking on it.

"Free paging is going to have a lot of value for everybody," says DSI Vice President Russ Colby, adding that it's not just teen-agers who want free stuff.

And if DSI's gamble is a winning bet, it could have far-reaching effects on the wireless industry, one analyst says.

The server, which transmits local and national advertisements via the Internet from the company's California headquarters, was unveiled at PCS '99 and marketed to local paging carriers. Colby expects there will be about 30,000 to 40,000 pagers on the system by November.

To get services and a basically free (with deposit, of course) pager, consumers supply a host of personal and demographic information to their local carrier that has purchased DSI's server and license agreement. Carriers catalog the information and DSI sends a targeted ad along with each page the consumer receives.

Colby says most ads will be seen, because users must scroll past them for messages.

"Targeting an audience is attractive to advertisers," says Steve Chadima, vice president of marketing for Free-PC, one company that offers free computers to create an advertising market.

But, Chadima says, it is sometimes difficult to convince advertisers that a small, targeted audience is as good as or better than an enormous, diverse one.

"Some advertisers don't care about targeting," continues Chadima, who has about 10,000 people on his network. "They say 'call when you have a million people.'"

The Strategis Group analyst Steve Virostek agrees that the ability to sign advertisers--the major source of revenue in this equation--will make or break DSI's free paging plan.

Virostek says the implications of free paging could be far-reaching if this plan blossoms. Interactive ads on Wireless Application Protocol phones, such as the ability to buy an airline ticket when a great fare pops onscreen, would likely be the next big step, he says.

Til then, Colby and DSI hope to tempt as many as possible with that irresistible word: free.