Pager
Encyclopedia
A pager 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 requested to call. Alphanumeric pagers are available, as well as two-way pagers that have the ability to send and receive email
, numeric pages, and SMS
messages.
The first practical pager was introduced in 1950 by physician
s in the New York City
area. The first pager system had a range of approximately (25 mi) and the physicians paid US$12 per month for the service. The actual pager device was developed and manufactured by Reevesound Company of New York and weighed approximately (6 oz).
Until the popular adoption of mobile phone
s in the 1990s, pagers filled the role of common personal and mobile communications. Today, pagers mainly support the "critical messaging" markets.
When 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 a voice mail message. The numeric message given is usually a phone number. Generally, the paged person will receive an alert from the pager with the phone number and/or a pager code within a few minutes. In the case of email paging, the text is displayed.
Most modern paging systems use simulcast delivery by satellite controlled networks. This type of distributed system makes them inherently more reliable than terrestrial based cellular networks for message delivery. Many paging transmitters may overlap a coverage area, while cellular systems are built to fill holes in existing networks. When terrestrial networks go down in an emergency, satellite systems continue to perform. Because of superior building penetration and availability of service in disaster situations, pagers are often used by first responders in emergencies.
Pagers are still in use today in places where mobile phones typically cannot reach users, and also in places where the operation of the radio transmitters contained in mobile phones is problematic or prohibited. One such type of location is a large hospital complex, where cellular coverage
is often weak or nonexistent, where radio transmitters are thought to interfere with sensitive medical equipment and where there is a greater need of assurance for a timely delivery of a message. The U.S. paging industry generated $2.1 billion in revenue in 2008, down from $6.2 billion in 2003.
A pager technology in wide use today is the restaurant pager, usually from the beeper category. Mainly used in the hospitality industry, customers are given a theft-protected portable receiver which usually vibrates, flashes or beeps when a table becomes free, or when their meal is ready.
Pagers have been popular with birdwatchers in Britain and Ireland since 1991, with companies Rare Bird Alert and Birdnet Information offering news of rare birds sent to pagers that they sell.
During the rise of the pager, it became the subject of various forms of media; most notably in the 1990s hip-hop scene. Upcoming mainstream artists such as Ice Cube and Method Man, along with underground acts such as A Tribe Called Quest
began referencing forthcoming mobile technologies, in particular the pager. A Tribe Called Quest's single 'Skypager' directly speaks of the importance of such a wireless communication device. Q-Tip conveys that the skypager "serves an important communicative function for a young professional with a full calendar". The smash hit "Bugaboo" from Destiny's Child also makes reference to pagers.
Pagers were a featured segment on the 1991 episode I Love the '90s: Part Deux
. The segment explored the device's entrance into mainstream pop culture; it also discussed the humorous use of calculator spelling
to send messages through the devices.
The growing popularity of cellphones in the early 21st century was accompanied by a corresponding decline in pager use by the general population. This shift accounts for Sam Flynn's amusement when Alan Bradley says "I was paged last night" in Tron: Legacy. Likewise, the 30 Rock
sitcom character Dennis Duffy attracts disdain and mockery for his career as a pager salesman.
In the song 3-Way (The Golden Rule)
by American comedy troupe The Lonely Island
, Justin Timberlake
states "You know I just got a page from a girl, That I met last week at the Pay-less".
advantages compared with cellular phones. Since a one-way pager is a passive receiver only (it sends no information back to the base station), its location cannot be tracked. However, this can also be disadvantageous, as a message sent to a pager must be broadcast from every paging transmitter in the pager's service area. Thus, if a pager has nationwide service, a message sent to it could be intercepted by criminals or law enforcement agencies anywhere within the nationwide service area.
; but email-based message submission methods do not usually provide any way to ensure that messages have been received by the paging network. This can result in pager messages being delayed or lost. Older forms of message submission using the Telocator Alphanumeric input Protocol
protocol involve modem connections directly to a paging network, and are less subject to these delays. For this reason, older forms of message submission retain their usefulness for disseminating highly-important alerts to users such as emergency service
s personnel.
Common paging protocols include TAP
, FLEX
, ReFLEX
, POCSAG
, Golay, ERMES
and NTT. Past paging protocols include Two-tone and 5/6-tone.
In the United States, pagers typically receive signals using the FLEX protocol
in the 900 MHz band. Commercial paging transmitters typically radiate 1000 watt
s of effective power, resulting in a much wider coverage area per tower than a mobile phone transmitter, which typically radiates around 0.6 Watts per channel.
Although FLEX paging networks tend to have stronger in-building coverage than mobile phone networks, commercial paging service providers will work with large institutions to install repeater equipment in the event that service is not available in needed areas of the subscribing institution's buildings. This is especially critical in hospital settings where emergency staff must be able to reliably receive pages in order to respond to patient needs.
Unlike mobile phones, most one-way pagers do not display any information about whether a signal is being received or about the strength of the received signal. Since one-way pagers do not contain transmitters, one-way paging networks have no way to track whether a message has been successfully delivered to a pager. Because of this, if a one-way pager is turned off or is not receiving a usable signal at the time a message is transmitted, the message will not be received and the sender of the message will not be notified of this fact. In the mid 1990s, some paging companies began offering a service, which allowed a customer to call their pagernumber, and have numeric messages read back to them. This was useful for times when the pager was off/out of coverage area, as it would know what number paged you even if you never actually received the page.
Other radio bands used for pagers include the 400 MHz band, the VHF band, and the FM commercial broadcast band (88-108 MHz). Other paging protocols used in the VHF, 400 MHz UHF, and 900 MHz bands include POCSAG
and ERMES. Pagers using the commercial FM band receive a subcarrier, called the Subsidiary Communications Authority
, of a broadcast station.
Onsite Paging Systems in Hospitals
Unlike wide area paging systems on site pager systems are local area services, hospitals commonly use on site paging for communication with staff and increasingly for calling waiting patients when their appointment is due (Patient Paging Systems). Patient Paging Systems offer waiting patients the opportunity to leave the waiting area but still be contactable.
Reference: Patient Paging Systems
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.
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, numeric pages, and SMS
Short message service
Short Message Service is a text messaging service component of phone, web, or mobile communication systems, using standardized communications protocols that allow the exchange of short text messages between fixed line or mobile phone devices...
messages.
The first practical pager was introduced in 1950 by physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
s in the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
area. The first pager system had a range of approximately (25 mi) and the physicians paid US$12 per month for the service. The actual pager device was developed and manufactured by Reevesound Company of New York and weighed approximately (6 oz).
Until the popular adoption of mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s in the 1990s, pagers filled the role of common personal and mobile communications. Today, pagers mainly support the "critical messaging" markets.
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.When 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 a voice mail message. The numeric message given is usually a phone number. Generally, the paged person will receive an alert from the pager with the phone number and/or a pager code within a few minutes. In the case of email paging, the text is displayed.
- Beepers were the first and are the simplest form of paging. They were named beepers because they originally made a beeping noise, but current pagers in this category use other forms of alert as well. Some use audio signals, others light up and some vibrate, often used in combination. The majority of restaurant pagers fall into this category.
- Voice/Tone pagers provide the ability to listen to a recorded voice message when an alert is received.
- Numeric pagers are the type of devices offering only a numeric display of the phone number to be called and pager codes, an informal language wherein sets of numbers symbolize preset messages.
- 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 capable of both sending and receiving text messages and email. To do this, the units either have a small built in keypad that allows the user to input messages, or the message can be typed from a wireless keyboard and is received by the pager. Other pager models rely on existing message templates that the user can choose to send back - this has the advantage of standardising communications, increasing speed of a message reply and reducing the chance of a miss-communication. Increasingly, two-way pagers are offered with GPS. GPS allows field agents location information to be sent back to a control centre that can use the information to send only location relevant information, and, to improve response times by designating jobs or activities only to the closest field personnel.
Most modern paging systems use simulcast delivery by satellite controlled networks. This type of distributed system makes them inherently more reliable than terrestrial based cellular networks for message delivery. Many paging transmitters may overlap a coverage area, while cellular systems are built to fill holes in existing networks. When terrestrial networks go down in an emergency, satellite systems continue to perform. Because of superior building penetration and availability of service in disaster situations, pagers are often used by first responders in emergencies.
Pager use in the 21st century
Cellular network
A cellular network is a radio network distributed over land areas called cells, each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver known as a cell site or base station. When joined together these cells provide radio coverage over a wide geographic area...
is often weak or nonexistent, where radio transmitters are thought to interfere with sensitive medical equipment and where there is a greater need of assurance for a timely delivery of a message. The U.S. paging industry generated $2.1 billion in revenue in 2008, down from $6.2 billion in 2003.
A pager technology in wide use today is the restaurant pager, usually from the beeper category. Mainly used in the hospitality industry, customers are given a theft-protected portable receiver which usually vibrates, flashes or beeps when a table becomes free, or when their meal is ready.
Pagers have been popular with birdwatchers in Britain and Ireland since 1991, with companies Rare Bird Alert and Birdnet Information offering news of rare birds sent to pagers that they sell.
In popular culture
As is the case with many new technologies, the functionality of the pager shifted from necessary professional use to a social tool integrated in one's personal life. Within a short timespan, pagers evolved from a tool for "technocratic elites" to a tool used by "kids living in the projects"During the rise of the pager, it became the subject of various forms of media; most notably in the 1990s hip-hop scene. Upcoming mainstream artists such as Ice Cube and Method Man, along with underground acts such as A Tribe Called Quest
A Tribe Called Quest
A Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985, and is composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip , rapper Phife Dawg , and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but rejoined in 2006...
began referencing forthcoming mobile technologies, in particular the pager. A Tribe Called Quest's single 'Skypager' directly speaks of the importance of such a wireless communication device. Q-Tip conveys that the skypager "serves an important communicative function for a young professional with a full calendar". The smash hit "Bugaboo" from Destiny's Child also makes reference to pagers.
Pagers were a featured segment on the 1991 episode I Love the '90s: Part Deux
I Love the '90s: Part Deux
I Love the '90s: Part Deux is a miniseries on VH1 in which various music and TV personalities reminisce about 1990s culture. It premiered on January 17, 2005. This series is a sequel to I Love the '90s...
. The segment explored the device's entrance into mainstream pop culture; it also discussed the humorous use of calculator spelling
Calculator spelling
Calculator spelling is a technique of spelling words by reading characters upside-down from calculators equipped with certain kinds of seven-segment displays...
to send messages through the devices.
The growing popularity of cellphones in the early 21st century was accompanied by a corresponding decline in pager use by the general population. This shift accounts for Sam Flynn's amusement when Alan Bradley says "I was paged last night" in Tron: Legacy. Likewise, the 30 Rock
30 Rock
30 Rock is an American television comedy series created by Tina Fey that airs on NBC. The series is loosely based on Fey's experiences as head writer for Saturday Night Live...
sitcom character Dennis Duffy attracts disdain and mockery for his career as a pager salesman.
In the song 3-Way (The Golden Rule)
3-Way (The Golden Rule)
"3-Way " is a song by American comedy music group The Lonely Island featuring American pop singers Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga. It appeared as an SNL Digital Short in the May 21, 2011 episode of the sketch comedy television series Saturday Night Live , which saw Timberlake and Gaga as the host...
by American comedy troupe The Lonely Island
The Lonely Island
The Lonely Island is an American comedy troupe composed of Akiva "Kiv" Schaffer, Jorma "Jorm" Taccone, and David Andrew "Andy" Samberg, best known for their comedic music. Originally from Berkeley, California, the group is currently based in New York City. The group broke out due to their...
, Justin Timberlake
Justin Timberlake
Justin Randall Timberlake is an American pop musician and actor. He achieved early fame when he appeared as a contestant on Star Search, and went on to star in the Disney Channel television series The New Mickey Mouse Club, where he met future bandmate JC Chasez...
states "You know I just got a page from a girl, That I met last week at the Pay-less".
Security
Pagers also have privacyPrivacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
advantages compared with cellular phones. Since a one-way pager is a passive receiver only (it sends no information back to the base station), its location cannot be tracked. However, this can also be disadvantageous, as a message sent to a pager must be broadcast from every paging transmitter in the pager's service area. Thus, if a pager has nationwide service, a message sent to it could be intercepted by criminals or law enforcement agencies anywhere within the nationwide service area.
Technical information
Many paging network operators now allow numeric and textual pages to be submitted to the paging networks via email. This is convenient for many users, due to the widespread adoption of emailEmail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
; but email-based message submission methods do not usually provide any way to ensure that messages have been received by the paging network. This can result in pager messages being delayed or lost. Older forms of message submission using the Telocator Alphanumeric input Protocol
Telocator Alphanumeric input Protocol
thumb|right|1985 MetroMedia IXO DeviceTelocator Alphanumeric input Protocol was also known as PET and IXO protocol. This protocol was used for sending one way alphanumeric pages. Originally, devices like the IXO Device were used to send Alphanumeric Pages using TAP. Later, Motorola would create...
protocol involve modem connections directly to a paging network, and are less subject to these delays. For this reason, older forms of message submission retain their usefulness for disseminating highly-important alerts to users such as emergency service
Emergency service
Emergency services are organizations which ensure public safety and health by addressing different emergencies. Some agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies whilst others deal with ad hoc emergencies as part of their normal responsibilities...
s personnel.
Common paging protocols include TAP
Telocator Alphanumeric input Protocol
thumb|right|1985 MetroMedia IXO DeviceTelocator Alphanumeric input Protocol was also known as PET and IXO protocol. This protocol was used for sending one way alphanumeric pages. Originally, devices like the IXO Device were used to send Alphanumeric Pages using TAP. Later, Motorola would create...
, FLEX
FLEX (protocol)
FLEX is a communications protocol developed by Motorola and used in many pagers. FLEX provides one-way communication only , but a related protocol called ReFLEX provides two-way messaging....
, ReFLEX
ReFLEX
ReFLEX is a wireless protocol developed by Motorola which is used for two-way paging.The Motorola PageWriter released in 1996 was one of the first devices to use the ReFLEX network protocol.-Versions:...
, POCSAG
POCSAG
POCSAG is an asynchronous protocol used to transmit data to pagers. The name comes from Post Office Code Standardization Advisory Group, this being the British Post Office which used to run nearly all telecommunications in Britain before privatization....
, Golay, ERMES
ERMES
ERMES is a pan-European radio paging system. Radio paging services depend on the allocation and availability of appropriate frequencies in order to transmit and receive between fixed-base stations and radio paging receivers respectively...
and NTT. Past paging protocols include Two-tone and 5/6-tone.
In the United States, pagers typically receive signals using the FLEX protocol
FLEX (protocol)
FLEX is a communications protocol developed by Motorola and used in many pagers. FLEX provides one-way communication only , but a related protocol called ReFLEX provides two-way messaging....
in the 900 MHz band. Commercial paging transmitters typically radiate 1000 watt
Watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
s of effective power, resulting in a much wider coverage area per tower than a mobile phone transmitter, which typically radiates around 0.6 Watts per channel.
Although FLEX paging networks tend to have stronger in-building coverage than mobile phone networks, commercial paging service providers will work with large institutions to install repeater equipment in the event that service is not available in needed areas of the subscribing institution's buildings. This is especially critical in hospital settings where emergency staff must be able to reliably receive pages in order to respond to patient needs.
Unlike mobile phones, most one-way pagers do not display any information about whether a signal is being received or about the strength of the received signal. Since one-way pagers do not contain transmitters, one-way paging networks have no way to track whether a message has been successfully delivered to a pager. Because of this, if a one-way pager is turned off or is not receiving a usable signal at the time a message is transmitted, the message will not be received and the sender of the message will not be notified of this fact. In the mid 1990s, some paging companies began offering a service, which allowed a customer to call their pagernumber, and have numeric messages read back to them. This was useful for times when the pager was off/out of coverage area, as it would know what number paged you even if you never actually received the page.
Other radio bands used for pagers include the 400 MHz band, the VHF band, and the FM commercial broadcast band (88-108 MHz). Other paging protocols used in the VHF, 400 MHz UHF, and 900 MHz bands include POCSAG
POCSAG
POCSAG is an asynchronous protocol used to transmit data to pagers. The name comes from Post Office Code Standardization Advisory Group, this being the British Post Office which used to run nearly all telecommunications in Britain before privatization....
and ERMES. Pagers using the commercial FM band receive a subcarrier, called the Subsidiary Communications Authority
Subsidiary Communications Authority
Subsidiary Communications Authorization in the United States, and Subsidiary Communications Multiplex Operation in Canada, is a subcarrier on a radio station, allowing the station to broadcast additional services as part of its signal.-Background:"Subsidiary Communications Authorization" is the...
, of a broadcast station.
Onsite Paging Systems in Hospitals
Unlike wide area paging systems on site pager systems are local area services, hospitals commonly use on site paging for communication with staff and increasingly for calling waiting patients when their appointment is due (Patient Paging Systems). Patient Paging Systems offer waiting patients the opportunity to leave the waiting area but still be contactable.
Reference: Patient Paging Systems
Satellite pager
A service based on the Iridium satellite constellationIridium satellite constellation
The Iridium satellite constellation is a large group of satellites providing voice and data coverage to satellite phones, pagers and integrated transceivers over Earth's entire surface. Iridium Communications Inc...
uses satellite
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
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
Satellite phone
A satellite telephone, satellite phone, or satphone is a type of mobile phone that connects to orbiting satellites instead of terrestrial cell sites...
. Messages can be sent in the form of SMS, email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
or from a web interface.
See also
- Alfred J. GrossAlfred J. GrossAlfred J. Gross , a.k.a. Irving J. Gross was a pioneer in mobile wireless communication. He created and patented many communications devices, specifically in relation to an early version of the walkie-talkie, Citizens' Band radio, the telephone pager and the cordless telephone...
- PlectronPlectronA Plectron is a specialized VHF/UHF single-channel, emergency alerting radio receiver, used to activate emergency response personnel, and disaster warning systems...
- Motorola Minitor Voice Pager
- Wireless Communications Transfer ProtocolWireless Communications Transfer ProtocolWireless Communications Transfer Protocol is the method used to send messages to wireless devices such as pagers on NPCS networks. It uses HTTP as a transport layer over the World Wide Web....
(WCTP) - Simple Network Paging ProtocolSimple Network Paging ProtocolSimple Network Paging Protocol is a protocol that defines a method by which a pager can receive a message over the Internet. It is supported by most major paging providers, and serves as an alternative to the paging modems used by many telecommunications services. The protocol was most recently...
(SNPP) - Text messagingText messagingText messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...
also known as texting
External links
- BBC news reports closure of UK domestic pager systems in 2001
- NotePage technical support - Technical information on protocols, carriers, etc.
- 800Beepers User Manuals
- 800Beepers Enhanced Options / Services