I wonder if they don't have the problems of cellphones. I mean if they can
receive, they can be located I guess. I don't know.
Isn't that what the thugs use in the first season of "The Wire" (along with
"burners")? Ah, even doctors still use that.
Nevertheless, pagers continue to be used by some emergency services and
public safety personnel, because modern pager systems' coverage overlap,
combined with use of satellite communications, can make paging systems more
reliable than terrestrial based cellular networks in some cases, including
during natural and man-made disaster.[2] This resilience has led public
safety agencies to adopt pagers over cellular and other commercial services
for critical messaging.[3][4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager
Man, a pager as a watch displaying alphanumeric stuff is futuristic 80's
stuff! Would be cool to read emails and sms (though it would probably require
a modem).
Ah, regarding privacy (a bit lower on the Wiki page)
Pagers also have privacy 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.
So, passive receiver only, that's cool.
But since the message sent to a pager is broadcast, it's easier to intercept.
Not a good idea for emails (supposing it's possible to receive them on a
pager), if there's bank or connection data.
More intereting stuff:
Types of paging
There are two different kinds of paging: limited range and wide-area. As the
name suggests, limited-range paging sends messages over a relatively small
area using a low-powered transmitter. It's perfect for sending emergency
messages to all the doctors in a hospital, for example. Wide-area paging is
more like national radio broadcasting. A system of radio transmitters sends
pager messages across a whole country in hopes that you'll be somewhere near
one of them. In the UK, for example, the wide-area paging network uses
something like 500 transmitter antennas—more than enough to cover a country
that size.
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/howpagerswork.html
It's also faster to receive than cellphones.
Well, that sucks:
A big drawback of using pagers is that, if you don't receive a message
(because you're out of range or your pager is switched off), there's no way
either you (or the sender) can find out about it. That's very different from
SMS text messaging (where the sending system will keep trying until the
message finally gets through) or email (where undelivered messages bounce
back sooner or later). A good practice with pagers is for the sender to keep
resending the same message periodically until the receiver finally responds.
So if you give someone your pager number, tell them how to use it at the same
time, especially if you're mainly using your pager for emergency contact:
"Keep on paging me until I respond."
That's cool.
they’re low-maintenance. The batteries in pagers don’t need to be changed
more than once every few weeks, even with heavy use. That means the system
will work even during a disaster or power outage, when it might be hard to
find a working outlet to charge a cellphone.
-
Paging networks have more broadcast power than those for cellphones, which
makes the signals better at penetrating buildings. They also rely on
satellites to relay messages. As a result, pager messages are broadcast to
multiple towers in a given area at the same time. That boosts reliability
because even if one pager tower stopped working, another could pick up the
satellite’s signal.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9468120
Here it seems to confirm that to receive a page, it must communicate with the
cell tower (or sattelite, or both). But the cell towers need a constant
signal sent from the device, so it doesn't make much sense.
In a nutshell,
if it's off or out of range, the page is lost.
A page can be intercepted, but I guess and sms can be as well.
Supposedly, it can't be tracked because it doesn't send data.
It has better battery life, better signal reception,
it's faster to receive than sms (sometimes it takes days).
Combined with a turned off phone, it can be a good idea.
The best would be some redirection towards the pager,
so the phone can keep track of potentially lost calls.
Now, how practical would that be IRL?
Phone off, getting beeps/vibrations all day, maybe text messages. At work I
can use the land line, while moving I can turn my phone up. Sounds good
actually.
