Does Anyone Still Use A Pager?

[Jerry Raia]

Just now I called Skytel to finally cancel my pager. I guess I was hanging on to it for sentimental reasons. It is one of those Motorola SkyWriters with the keyboard. Well after wading through the usual voice menus and being put on hold and transfered I got through to the "Cancellation Department" (I guess they need a whole department for that these days) and the first question I get asked is "Why do you want to cancel?" I was stumped for a moment. I wanted to ask "Are you kidding? Look out the window! The text messaging cell phone is here...Hello!!!!" Instead I just said I didn't use it anymore. That wasn't enough. "You are paying such a low rate right now, are you sure?" I felt like I was in a Fellini movie. "Yes I'm quite sure." Still not satisfied here comes the quote of the day. "I see you own the pager, do you know anyone else you could transfer it too?"

Needless to say moments after my next response the pager was canceled. Now I'm sure they still have a place but does anyone still use an old fashioned pager?

[chrhamil]

emergency we will call you on your cellphone. They said if you go over your minutes we will reimburse you. I am happy to not have to carry it anymore since it wasn't being used, but since I manage the phone system (POTS) hopefully the call won't be screened. :D

[BR]

Pagers what are those . . . haha, j/k . . . I havent known anyone who one of those in like 10 years!

[MajesticNJ]

My company still requires them but they pay for it so....

One thing I would like is a service that lets people call into a 800 number and after the beep they enter a phone number then hit #. The service then sends that phone number to your cell phone via sms.

Wouldn't that be cool? This way you can have your cell phone be your pager yet not give out your cell phone number to people you don't want to have it.

Wishing....wishing...wishing....

Does this service exist already? If so, where and how much is it? If not, would you want to have something like this? How much would you pay for it?

Fred

[Islanti]

There is a very good reason for 2-way pagers over SMS mobile phones still. Pager companies provide guaranteed delivery (including CC'ing to an email address). The mobile companies do not consider SMS a "mission critical" application. Typically this results in no difference, but when SMS fails there is no recourse (in the form of a service credit or the like).

[possmann]

Fargin' Pager - worse yet, Fargin Company for not realizing that paging or sending text messages to my cell phone would be BETTER...

Still there is something to be said about the pager infrastructure (network) it is clearly more prevelant than cell networks, but that is rapidly changing too...

[nikjones]

One of the few remaining pager networks in the UK closed end of last year, caused BIG problems for the lifeboat volunteers. They all have pagers as the response time is guarenteed (5 mins?). They looked at using SMS but found that networks only guaranteed delivery within 24 hours - not good for sailors in trouble.

Other than that, paging seems dead around here.

[Jerry Raia]

I think it is slowly dying off also. Skytel sure seemed desperate.

[footdoc]

I have to carry a pager for work. Does anyone know if it is possible to have pages forwarded to cell phone?

[christak]

One-way pagers are still quite prevalent in the workforce, primarily for those working in sensitive areas where two-way communications devices are not allowed...
8)

[dollardr]

I am in healtchare and unfortunately we still use them for their reliability.

[BR]

Actually, I forgot how useful they are in the healthcare industry . . . it is the only way my friend can get in touch with her dad who is a doctor

[dollardr]

We are however minimizing pager tag through the use of instant VOIP communicator badges with speech recognition technology on our wireless network.

http://www.vocera.com

You can even call our switch and get a hold of someone through our PBX without paging them.

[Kris Kumar]

Four or five years ago, my company had given me a Timex watch pager. It was big and geeky. And since I was not used to wearing a watch, I never used it. And it has been sitting inside one of my work desks for the last four -five years. Maybe I should pull it out and see if the clock still works or not. :-)

But many companies still rely on them. My would-be has one. And she has a work cellphone. :roll: They obviously have not heard about the SMS. The reasoning for the pager is that the cellphone does not work everywhere..looks like her company has not heard about Verizon either.

[Jerry Raia]

Yeah for a time the coverage was a big issue for me. I always needed nation wide coverage. The last year or so the pager just became totally unnecessary. The cell phone coverage is actually better now. With that and being able to check email anywhere, well.... another toy goes into the grave drawer.