A Motorola alphanumeric pager used in Brazil in the 1990s, operated by Teletrim

A Skyper pager that is in use for HAM Radio

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Telephones & Pagers

A pager (sometimes called a beeper) is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then expected to call. more...

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Alphanumeric pagers are also available, and two-way ones can send email or SMS messages as well as receiving.

Until the popular adoption of mobile phones in the late 1990s, pagers fulfilled the role of common personal and mobile communications. As of 2007, pagers have fallen into obsolescence and are preserved only by niche markets consisting largely of emergency service personnel, medical personnel, and information technology support staff.

History

Paging was invented by Multitone Electronics in 1956 at St Thomas' Hospital in London to alert doctors attending emergencies. Since then, paging has evolved in sophistication. Today, millions of messages are transmitted to people needing fast, reliable messaging communications.

In the world of paging there are two distinct categories of system in operation. There are on-site paging systems that are used in hospitals to convey the same urgent information as when they were invented in 1956. The other type is wide area paging, which offers similar features as on-site paging, but provides the radio coverage across a city, region or country rather than in just one hospital building.

Originally operating on AM radio frequencies, paging moved to FM schemes prior to becoming a ubiquitous form of communications around the developed and developing world. In some cases, before the advent of cellular phone systems the pager was used as a replacement for a lack of cheap local or international phone services.

Function and operation

Paging is a subscription service offered in a variety of plans and options to meet the needs of a subscriber and the type of device used. In general, all pagers are given unique phone numbers while alphanumeric pagers are given an email address, usually consisting of the phone number.

Upon calling a phone number assigned to a pager, the calling party reaches a recorded greeting asking the caller to enter a numeric message, and sometimes giving the caller an option to leave voice mail. Usually, within a few minutes, the paged person will receive an alert from the pager with the phone number to return the call and/or a pager code. In the case of email paging, the text is displayed.

Numeric pagers are the simplest of the type of devices offering only a numeric display of the phone number to be called and pager codes; Alphanumeric pagers are essentially modified versions of numeric pagers with sophisticated display to accommodate text. These devices are usually given an email address to receive text messages.; Two-way Alphanumeric pagers are alphanumeric pagers with the ability to send text messages typed in with a small keyboard.;