The present invention provides a communication system for transmitting messages from one or more dispatcher stations to and from one or more stand-alone, two-way pagers via a radio frequency communication channel, namely, the short message service (SMS) of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM/GPRS) cellular telephone network. The paging system of the present invention utilizes a communications protocol which allows a dispatcher station and a pager of the paging system to communicate over the GSM/GPRS network in a predetermined manner. When the dispatcher station sends a message to a pager of the present invention, the message may contain steering codes which inform the pager of the manner in which the message is to be treated. For example, if the message is time-critical, the pager is notified by the steering code that a response to the message must be transmitted within a predetermined time integral. If the pager does not transmit a response within the predetermined time interval, the pager is not allowed to respond to the message. The steering codes may also require that the user can respond with a preprogrammed answer which has been previously stored in the memory of the pager. The two-way pager allows the central station to determine the geographical location of the pager.