Talk:Pager

Countries expanding pager services again

I will do some research on countries expanding pager networks again, specially for emergency services. Specifically in Australia where communications fail during natural disasters (even emergency two way radios failed) and the pager systems have survived. There seems to be considerable expansion in Queensland Australia. Also, Vodafone Australia are putting in more transmitters. I have also heard other countries are expanding their networks too.. Expanding networks needs to be mentioned so the article is more accurate. (1) https://www.stiengineering.com.au/projects/emergency-services/p2000-network-upgrade.aspx — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.8.95.190 (talk) 19:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

If this is true, I would be very interested to see what you come up with. I could see it making sense for some activities in some geographical areas. DrDeke (talk) 19:51, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Routers & Switches

However, this use of the Internet to carry text messaging traffic is subject to unpredictable delays due to router and switch traffic.

Routers and switches cause traffic in magnitude of hundreds of milisecond, even if when sending over the globe. I do not think that such delays are of concern. I suggest removing this. --Alvin-cs ✉ 13:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I am about to do some cleaning up of the article and will remove this. DrDeke 16:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Traffic with SMS text messages

It may not be the traffic on routers / switches, the delays on which appear to be underestimated, it can certainly take a lot longer to recieve an SMS text message versus a Page, also, since paging technology is older, the base stations are more prevalent, with pagers able to use both the mobile cellular networks, and the pager networks which are still developed for emergency services / police use.

I haven't had a delayed SMS text message in many years (I can tell because I get a service message from the network saying when a message is delivered to a recipient's phone). SMSing nowadays is pretty much instant, at least in countries that keep their base stations up to date. Also, emergency services now often use their own cell phone base station system using frequencies and routers separate from the civilian ones, and they can also use civilian networks with special priority given to their messages and calls.

I work at a mobile telephone company, and trust me when I say that pages are always instant, whereas SMS messages can take some time to arrive on a mobile phone. Even if the message is sent from an application linked directly to the SMSC, it can still take some time before the message arrives on the mobile. I agree with you that in most cases it comes in directly, but there are times where it can take 1 or 2 minutes. Ajunne

I've used Skytel pagers before, and have experienced multi-hour delays in pages being received - so no, they're not ALWAYS instantaneous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.68.159 (talk) 04:54, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Skytel

Does anyone know anything about how Skytel works? They claim to have full-time US nationwide coverage for one-way pagers, as opposed to "follow-me" service where you have to call the network to tell it where you are at any moment. If they're claiming what it sounds like, that means they broadcast every page to the whole country. I guess that's not inconceivable, but I'd like to know details. Phr (talk) 10:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe you are correct; that messages sent to subscribers of a nationwide one-way paging service are broadcast on every paging tower operated by that specific paging service on that specific coverage plan in the country. I don't see any other way in which it could work. Skytel tends to use 6400bps FLEX on their paging channels, and I suspect that as of 2006, pager traffic has declined to levels where it is quite feasible to offer nationwide one-way paging at the (relatively) low rates that Skytel offers.

This is my speculation based on some evidence; I do not know for a fact that this is how the system works, but I am fairly confident that it is.

--DrDeke 05:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Skytel used to do one-way paging service by starting with the page in your primary service area and then sending it to all areas. They were an early adatper of FLEX so that the pager would register when it entered an an area (abbreviated two-way) to lower channel congestion. They also used two-way to guarantee reception of pages.

--kah13 2340 hrs, 29 June 2006 (PDT)

I don't think that FLEX pagers could transmit any information at all, not even "1.5-way" or registration messages. I thought that ReFLEX was needed for that. I'll have to look into it to confirm, but I am pretty sure this is the case.

--DrDeke 18:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I've used Skytel for over a decade. Normally, pages are sent to your 'home' region. If you activate 'NationwideNow', for example if you are traveling, pages are sent throughout the country, but there's a surcharge per page. They offer a similar international service. AFAIK Skytel used to use a satellite system for paging, which provided blanket nationwide coverage. Now they rely on terrestrial transmitters, which they say are in towns of 50,000 or more. 66.93.7.200 18:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Skytel's 1Way paging network as mentioned above can have a "home" region or can always have nationwide service depending on your request at the time you sign up. Activating NationwideNow is done at 1800skyuser via telephone keypad input or speaking to a customer service rep. Skytel's 2Way network automatically looks for what region the user is located within and delivers their messages there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.127.108 (talk) 13:37, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

FM Radio Paging

Pagers typically receive signals using the SCA subcarrier of FM broadcast stations in the 88-108 mhz band... This statement is flatly untrue in the US. Also, most of the rest of the paragraph is somewhere between a little wrong and very wrong. Hospitals often run their own paging plants, but their reason for using pagers is actually more a function of business process than an issue over cell coverage. --kah13 2331 hrs, 29 June 2006 (PDT)

Yeah, that paragraph was pretty bad. I fixed it up some and will continue to look over the entire "Pager" article, as there are other parts that could probably use some fixing up.

--DrDeke 18:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup?

On 17 November 2006, the user Sin-man tagged this article as being in need of clean-up. If you (Sin-man) see this, could you please let us know what you believe needs to be cleaned up in the article? Otherwise, I am unsure as to how we will know when the tag should be removed. Thanks.

DrDeke 17:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggest a disambiguation page to separate 'pager' the communications device, from 'pager', a type of small software program for viewing plain-text files in UNIX. 209.191.144.12 14:01, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Needs History section

This entry needs more history of the pager. When was the first service? How much did it cost? What was the first pager like? Why was it invented? --24.249.108.133 00:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

srsly. Yes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.136.62 (talk) 23:16, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree, would be nice to know when pagers came into common use. Chicagoitsystems (talk) 11:26, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

What about Joseph Poliakoff's pager? It's mentioned on his page, with correct reference, but not here - it predates Bell's device by a couple of years 2A01:4B00:F411:4D00:1D4D:DD25:A864:38F5 (talk) 17:55, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

June 2007 Pager Article Clean-up and Reformat Discussion

After some consideration, I would like to propose a series of edits to clean-up the jumble of text and reformat the article to create an ordered readability. What I plan to do (hopefully with the support of major editors of this article) is to rewrite a new introduction, create addition sections, shuffle existing text, add additional content, and delete whatever is leftover.

• As stated earlier, the article is in need of additional sections. Outright, I will add “Function and Operation” section explaining how, at the consumer level, numeric, alphanumeric, and two-way pagers worked.

• A “Technical Information” will be added to explain the FLEX and POCSAG protocols.

• I have briefly browsed through the article to be merged “Radio Paging” for the most part think that it should be merged into a new section, “History”, within this article.

• One section I would like to see but question if would Wikipedia’s guidelines would tolerate is “pager codes”. Performing Google searches for “Pager codes”, verified the existence of an informal numeric code language for numeric pagers.

While I do plan to implement these edits on Thursday, June 21st, I would delay any such action to consider any comments and suggestions by other editors.--Kevin586 19:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

tone-only

This article seems to completely overlook tone-only paging, which was all that was available for many years. Tone-only pagers were still in common use as late as the mid 90's, they were useful for things like voicemail notification or notification to call dispatch.

Drug dealers

I'm surprised there's nothing in the article about drug dealers, who used to be one of the niches for pagers. Back in the early-to-mid 1990s, it was commonly assumed that if you had a pager you were either a doctor or a drug dealer. -- LGagnon 19:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Seconded, I'm a child of the nineties, and I remember the ghetto mystique attached to these things. For a certain crowd, they were the bling of the period, and facilitated a lot of DEA-prohibited business transactions. --24.91.98.99 (talk) 03:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... Guess no one got around to this. But it's true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.80.252.47 (talk) 04:18, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I recall the claims well, in addition to receiving documentation of school policies and regulations on the subject in my high school in the 1990s; looking back, it all seemed like a moral panic to me. --Kencaesi (talk) 19:34, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

This phrase "These references relate directly to illicit drug trade, a staple of employment in the African American community. " Does not need to be in this article because it is not representative of the vast majority of the African American population in the United States. It can be said that pagers were important in the 1990s drug trade. However, to suggest that the illicit drug trade is or was a "staple" in the African American population is a denial of the truth and serves no purpose except to place on display the ignorance and racism of the writer. My recommendation is to remove that line.Hmgarnett (talk) 05:10, 4 January 2016 (UTC) hmgarnett 4 January 2016 @ 12:10 AM.

Agreed. Removed. Further, is "unregistered pharmacist" supposed to be a euphemism for drug dealer? JamesNBarnes (talk) 13:15, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

When was it made?

The article does not say when the pager was invented, all it does say is that it was used in the 200's and 1900's, but what about before? An exact year maybe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.1.45 (talk) 00:52, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Question about using a beeper

How do I delete a page from the beeper once I've responded to it, so the beeper doesn't continue beeping on and on with the same original page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coconuts1 (talk • contribs) 18:24, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Removed section on satellite pagers

I'm moving this section here since it's been tagged as unreferenced since June 2009:

==Satellite pager== {{Unreferenced section|date=June 2009}} A service based on the [[Iridium satellite constellation]] uses [[satellite]]s to deliver short text messages to one-way pagers similar to those used by terrestrial paging networks. Despite the fact that the network provides world-wide coverage the messages are only sent to pre-selected ''message delivery areas'' which can be set on a web-based interface or by binding the service to a [[satellite phone]]. Messages can be sent in the form of SMS, [[email]] or from a web interface.

__meco (talk) 21:14, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Beepers and Bleepers

Both appear to be in common usage:

• https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bleeper
• https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/beeper

Maybe bleeper is more common in UK? Rathfelder (talk) 13:46, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

@Rathfelder: So why didn't you source it when you continued to add it to the article? And requesting page protection to stop people reverting your unsourced addition is a pretty low trick usually employed by vandals and those who are WP:NOTHERE. 86.164.169.96 (talk) 14:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

We dont need to source assertions that the sea is wet. And if you were logged in you would not worry about page protection. Rathfelder (talk) 14:11, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

This was nothing to do with the sea, wet or otherwise. This was your unsourced edit warring that 'bleeper' was a synonym for 'beeper' which most certainly requires a source once it was challenged. Certainly not a term that I had heard before. It turned out to be the case, but not from any reference that you added to the article. Page protection would not have affected the other editor who was reverting you, presumably for exactly the same reason. 86.164.169.96 (talk) 14:36, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Moder Pagers

I cant find anywhere on the internet about if they still make pagers and I was was wondering if anyone has any information about this subject.

--Furry-OwO2021 (talk) 05:33, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Captain Marvel pager.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:23, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Restaurant use

The History section says "Restaurant pagers were in wide use in the 2000s. Customers were given a portable receiver that would usually vibrate, flash, or beep when a table became free or when their meal was ready."

They are still commonly used here in Japan. Every restaurant in the food court at the mall across the street from where I am now uses them. I had one yesterday, though obviously there is no official source I can cite for this.

124.37.83.250 (talk) 06:03, 15 November 2021 (UTC)