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is it still possible to use pagers?


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Old 09-05-2011, 23:46
chris redfield
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in the uk or anywhere for that matter? obviously mobiles have sort of made them redundant. but do they still work anyway?
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Old 10-05-2011, 00:31
IslandNiles
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Yep. My work still used one until a couple of weeks ago.
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Old 11-05-2011, 15:26
xtaz
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Yup. I use one for work. 24/7 on-call. Pagers have better coverage than mobiles and tend to work anywhere. Plus it means I can turn my mobile off at night. The main reason though is that I work for a mobile network and if I'm being called out for some part of that mobile network being down then mobile might not actually work
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Old 11-05-2011, 16:14
Thine Wonk
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How do pagers work, surely they can't be better coverage than a mobile they must use the 2G mobile masts right?

I haven't seen anyone with a pager in years!
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Old 11-05-2011, 16:35
vinba
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Hospital staff still have them. I keep hearing the Mrs one go off all the time followed by a loud "What the frack do they want now?"
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Old 11-05-2011, 17:50
xtaz
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How do pagers work, surely they can't be better coverage than a mobile they must use the 2G mobile masts right?
Well the pager network was built before the mobile networks. I'm sure a lot of pager sites share the same towers as the mobile ones but not all of them will. Pagers work on a far lower frequency than mobile phones which means the signal travels much farther and through buildings far easier. Roughly 140mhz ish if I remember rightly. Compared to mobiles which are 900mhz and 1800mhz. I'm not sure on this point but it's probably also much higher power levels because it's only one way and doesn't need communication back to the transmitter.
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Old 11-05-2011, 18:26
carguy143
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Well the pager network was built before the mobile networks. I'm sure a lot of pager sites share the same towers as the mobile ones but not all of them will. Pagers work on a far lower frequency than mobile phones which means the signal travels much farther and through buildings far easier. Roughly 140mhz ish if I remember rightly. Compared to mobiles which are 900mhz and 1800mhz. I'm not sure on this point but it's probably also much higher power levels because it's only one way and doesn't need communication back to the transmitter.

Some pagers offer two way and use a different number of frequencies, for example in the US i believe they used 900MHz for pagers. Some even acted as a voicemail service whereby the pager would beep telling the user to check their mailbox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager
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Old 13-05-2011, 02:45
chris redfield
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interesting stuff guys, thanks for the info. is it possible to actually still buy one and have it connected to a network for personal use? or is it only for people that work within specific organisations these days? I kind of like the idea of using one.
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Old 13-05-2011, 09:13
xtaz
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Well this is who we use: http://www.paging.vodafone.net/ , though that's on a business page. I'm sure you could get one personally if you wanted to though.
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Old 13-05-2011, 10:16
sean2003
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I have a pager, On Vodafone.

It costs around £17 per month with a 500 email allowance, emails come through within about 60 seconds.

In the UK pagers are available on Vodafone or PageOne networks.
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Old 13-05-2011, 14:21
chris redfield
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ah! good stuff,thanks for that link and info xtaz and sean. its nice to see that they are still available for personal use. will look into vodafone and pageone.
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Old 14-05-2011, 00:32
Lyricalis
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Yes, pagers are still in use. I know IT support staff who work in secure high classification sites (where mobile phones aren't allowed, and probably wouldn't get a good signal anyway) who still have them.
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Old 14-05-2011, 03:29
Simon Rodgers
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Yep. My work still used one until a couple of weeks ago.
Can you still get ones with the information services? Why can't mobiles give you stuff like that?
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