Who still uses pagers?
Who still uses pagers?
The tiny electronic devices remain a vital means of communication in some areas - such as health care and emergency services, thanks to their durability and long battery life
In the HAM Radio world we use them. But we also use our own infrastructure. I have mine set to let me know when something happens that needs my attention asap. Only works around my stuff or other HAMs that have stuff tied into our system. So not useful outside narrow circumstances.
People that work on-call do this, especially in tech or security.
I'm considering making the switch because my paging calls are from a random set of phone numbers, so I cannot attach a specific ringtone to them. After a few horrible pages, you start to associate your phone going off as a world-ending experience, when it's just your wife calling to ask if you want her to pick something up for you from the shop. A separate device that disassociates my phone from pain would be nice.
Could you not just change the ring tones of your contacts to something else and then have all unknown callers use the bad time ring tone?
Opsgenie and PagerDuty let you add them as contacts from within the app and it manages the rotating numbers for you so you can keep using a specific ringtone for them. This is also how they can override DND so you can go back to muting your phone at night and know that pages will still come in.
Alternative thought, what about dual sims? Could you not assign a ringtone to a specific sim, and use that sims phone number only for work?
Barring that, something like a Google Voice number would work, too.
People that work in classified environments. You can't have smart devices (phones, watches, anything that communicates with the outside) while in these controlled spaces. pagers are acceptable because they're 1 way communication, so there's no risk of data leaks from the classified space
Pagers are not guaranteed to be 1 way comms and bringing them into secure locations is a security violation. Additionally, depending on the classification, no unauthorized and undisclosed devices of any kind would be permitted, including any electronics or electronic media such as tapes, CDs, discs, etc. Even when I was issued a verified 1-way pager, I was specifically briefed I was not permitted to bring it into a classified location. Most of the highly classified SCIFS are shielded anyways, you can't use it inside so it's safer to leave it out, along with all other devices.
If your organization allows it, then (if federal) they are breaking the law and should be reported/up-channeled. If it's corpo, you should bring up additional concerns with your security team.
Edit: Also, it goes without saying, current events are probably a good reason why pagers (and other devices) aren't allowed in classified areas. While most focus on disclosure (getting out), we must not forget the risk of data/operations getting destroyed.
Idk man, I have a federally compliant 1 way pager. So it's not illegal. We score the highest marks on our DoD security audits every year. Theyre distrubuted from the security office, so I'm sure they do some sort of vetting on each individual one.
We're a govt contractor, but our civilian govt counterparts use them too
I saw something where they gave their kid a pager instead of a phone so they could still be told when to come home but couldn't waste time fucking about online.
I thought that might actually be pretty effective except for the fact that the kid could easily just ignore your pages.
Although there are dumb phones out there
3000 less people than last week
Doctors
You can also setup local comms network for them and the bands they can operate in have better structural penetration vs most WiFi/cellular?
It also gives them a singular, simple device that won't be confused for personal notifications like a smart phone.
Not everything needs to be bleeding edge. We still use forks and spoons cuz they just work.
People that don't want their location triangulated from cell phone towers.
Hezbolah, apparently.
Not anymore.
Beeper king ftw
If anyone sees a salamander, it’s Liz’s.
I think I’d like a 2-way pager these days. They were a little ahead of their time because me and most people preferred phone calls to sending text messages but that’s obviously flipped hard over the last decade. I straight up groan when someone has the audacity to call me now lol
They're called phones.
They offer text messaging as well yeah, but simpler devices are nice. I use my smartphone most when I’m at work, bored in the break from (like right now) but outside of that I just usually have better things to do. I often leave my phone at home in favor of my smart watch which does a lot less but still has my music on it and a way for the wife to contact me which are the 2 main things I value. I’m just saying that even it’s not for the majority, 2 way pagers would likely have a place in the market. There’s a whole group of people these days that love shopping for dumb phones to cut distractions out of their days.
The Wire... great show to watch.
It’s a discipline.
The irony is unreal
Work has me using my current phone for alerts on my on-call rotation. I asked them to send me a pager instead if I can't properly filter the alerts (Jira on Android has at least 2 sets of notification settings and then there are settings apparently within Jira. I was getting basically every Jira, Confluence, etc. message).
I don't know why people still using pagers this day. Smartphones exist to replace that, even if you afraid to use smartphones because NSA/FBI/CIA/KGB tracking you could use dumb phone tho....
Even dumb phone can achieve so many things compared to pagerMaybe you could read the article and learn something:
But the tiny electronic devices remain a vital means of communication in some areas - such as health care and emergency services, thanks to their durability and long battery life.
"It's the cheapest and most efficient way to communicate to a large number of people about messages that don't need responses," said a senior surgeon at a major U.K. hospital, adding that pagers are commonly used by doctors and nurses across the country's National Health Service (NHS). "It's used to tell people where to go, when, and what for."
Smartphones do a lot of things that might not be needed (look into how many different sensors they have). Sometimes a person doesn't have access to a charger or time to charge a device and running out of battery could mean someone dies.
To add to your point regarding additional functions inherent in smartphones: pagers do one thing. They're relatively simple devices. Simplicity means that there are fewer things that can cause the device to function incorrectly or fail to function altogether. In hospital communications use-cases, this is a huge benefit.
Additionally, pagers are relatively inexpensive. Therefore, it's much more effective to have multiple spares available for distribution compared to smartphones. If a pager is inoperable, it can quickly be swapped out with a backup while the original is repaired or replaced. Smartphones do not carry that benefit.
It's because they are simpler devices which are much less infrastructure dependent, and also less power hungry. A single battery charge in a pager will last you much longer than a single battery charge on a smartphone.
Also due to their lower infrastructure requirements they can function even if cellular networks are not functioning, at all or optimally.
they can function even if cellular networks are not functioning, at all or optimally.
When I worked for a cell company, our on-call technicians carried a pager that was on a different company's network.