Beep, beep, goes the pager strapped to a service technician’s belt. It’s a message from his company. He turns to the customer, “May I use your phone? I have a message from my company”. In another instance, a woman calls up the pager company’s call centre, “I have a message for Praveen, pager number xxxxxx…. Here’s the message – You are late for the appointment. Please contact the office to reschedule it.” The operator repeats the message to confirm. This was a common scene in India in the mid 90s when the pager dominated the wireless communication market.

A pager is a dedicated radio frequency device that allows the user to receive messages broadcast on a specific frequency over a network of radio base stations. Al Gross invented the first telephone pager in 1949, which was patented in 1921. The device was intended for the use of doctors and was first used in New York City's Jewish Hospital in 1950. However, pagers were not available for the general public until 1958. Motorola coined the term “pager” in 1959.  The company introduced its first commercial pager in 1974. However, the device did not have a display and only served to alert the user that a message had been sent.

Motorola introduced the world's first two-way pager, which allowed users to receive text messages and email, and reply with a standard response. The messages could also be downloaded by connecting the device to a computer. Initially the pagers were numeric and tone pagers. These pagers could receive a phone number with an alert. This was the original pager system. Alphanumeric pagers were more advanced and could receive letters and numerals as in the case of SMS text.

It took another two decades for the pager to be launched in India. Following its successful launch in 1995, pagers were looked upon as devices that offered the much needed mobility in communication, especially for businesses. Motorola was a major player with nearly 80 per cent of the market share. The other companies included Mobilink, Pagelink, BPL, Usha Martin telecom and Easy call. Pagers were generally worn on the belt or carried in the pocket.

The business peaked in 1998 with the subscriber base reaching nearly 2 million. However, the number dropped to less than 500,000 in 2002. In many countries, the pager continued to exist side by side with the mobile phone. However, in India it was not to be. The pager companies in India were soon struggling to maintain their business. While 2-way pagers could have buffered the fall, the pager companies were not in a position to upgrade their infrastructure to improve the ailing market. The Indian Paging Services Association was unable to support the industry. 

Pager companies in India also offered their services in regional languages also. However, the end had begun already. By 2002, Motorola stops making or servicing pagers. When mobile phones were commercially launched in India, the pager had many advantages to boast. Pagers were smaller, had a longer battery life and were considerably cheaper. However, the mobile phones got better with time and continuously upgraded themselves.

The mobile phones could offer all the services offered by the pagers and many more. They were more convenient. When mobile phones tariffs were cut down it was the last nail on the coffin for the pager. By 2004, the value of pagers decreased so much so that the devices that cost nearly Rs 11,000 in 1998 began to be given out as free offer, without much demand though. 

In many countries, pagers were still used by the users for whom the device was initially meant for - the physicians. The concern that electromagnetic interference (EMI) between mobile phones and life-supporting devices could cause adverse effects resulted in the hospitals preferring to use the pagers.  However, in recent years, mobiles have penetrated even the hospitals. Two-way communication using mobiles was found to be highly advantageous and the results of various studies about the harmful effects of mobiles were in favour of the mobile phone. Now instead of complete ban on mobile phones many hospitals banned mobile phones only in certain places in the hospital.

In the UK, the ban on the use of mobile phone in hospitals was lifted recently. However, mobiles are still restricted in areas such as intensive care units. According to the British Medical Association, doctors switching to mobile phones could improve communication and care.

Even though the pagers are nearly extinct, they are still used by a marginal population such as technicians. Pagers are also sometimes used by some restaurants to inform customers that an order was ready. The faint beep of pagers may still linger for a while before it vanishes altogether. X

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