Pagers (1 Viewer)

[Chad Ferguson]

I just cancelled my Cell phone cause I had such a cheap phone and the coverage wasn't all that great. I recently looked at the price of pagers and it's very cheap, and so are the plans compared too. Just curious if anyone here still uses them and could tell me if they are a good purchase. I mainly carried the phone to get contacted for work, so I think the pager could easily replace it.
Thanks

 

[Jonathan R]

people still use pagers? :eek3: 13

 

[Kirk Gunn]

We use pagers as the primary method of emergency notification at work because the bandwidth is lower, so coverrage is greater. Nothing like sending an urgent text message to your oncall person's phone and not getting a response because they're in a bad cell at 11pm Friday night....


So.. for work it might be ok if there's no urgency to call back. Finding a payphone when you're on the road is quite the hassle, especially when you're stuck on the freeway in bumper-to-bumper.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I still carry one for work, too. Pagers are still the standard method of on-call notification for our organization, including text messaging with descriptions of the problem at hand. I do also carry a cell phone (my own expense) so I can return calls when away from home.

FYI, I work in the IT department for a large healthcare organization.

 

[Michael Warner]

Pretty much anyone working in or around hospitals still carries a pager since cell phones can't be used in most areas on the premises.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I am 24/7/365 for the IT business and pagers are still the mode of contact because they are cheaper, they have greater range and people tend to wear them more than a cell phone (my cell is always in the car, never on me). Like Scott, I have the cell at my own expense and use it to answer pages when I am away from home. In my experience, a pager with text messaging is a better way to contact someone in an emergency than any cell I've ever owned. Plus, it's small enough to put it inside my pocket with the clip hooked to the outside. No belt needed when I wear jeans.

 

[MarkHastings]

Thanks for clearing up this puzzle for me. I've often wondered why people used pagers, but it makes sense now after some of the responses.

I guess they're better for business models rather than personal use. I don't know how many times I've been puzzled to see someone get a page, and then watch them use their cell phone to call the person back.

 

[LewB]

The bill for my pager (paid for by employer) is $4 per month for local area service. The bill for my cell phone with an el cheapo plan that I get because my employer does a lot of business with Verizon is about $20/month with taxes if I don't roam or do whatever else makes the bill go up.
Lets see now, 4 bucks per month versus 20 bucks per month. Which would you choose if you were a typically myopic fortune 100 company ?

 

[Leila Dougan]

I carry a pager when I'm on call for the same reason a lot of the other IT folks here do.

But the thing is, I don't really think they are any cheaper than cell phones. To really get use out of a pager, it's nice to have two-way messaging with unlimited messages. The pager I really like is the Motorola T900, but unfortunately Motorola has gotten out of the pager business. But the cost of the T900 was something like $250 and nationwide unlimited messaging through Arch is like $50/month. So it's not any cheaper than a cell phone.

I really liked having my email forward to the pager (or selected emails defined by a rule) and being able to respond to them from the pager. It worked well for business use but for personal use I think I'd just stick to a cell phone.

For cheaper pagers that don't have text capabilities and certainly not two-way, I think they're a waste of money. Most people don't like them and if your friends are any thing like mine, they'll quickly tire of having to use it.