ARE PAGERS MAKING A COMEBACK...ARE THEY STILL A THING?

What???? Do Pagers even exist anymore?

Who's still using pagers in 2024 and why?

We get these questions a lot lately.  Some people even call us to find out if this is some type of joke or scam website.  We get quite a chuckle sometimes. 

To answer these questions, We first have to set your perspective on pagers correctly and then it will make much more sense as to why people are still using pagers and new pager users are joining us every day.

Some people like to make things a competition. In the case of pagers, they like to compare pagers to cell phones mainly because the people that used pagers back in the 1990's when they were hugely popular, have moved on to cell phones and left pagers in the dust decades ago. These people don't even think pagers exist anymore and cannot understand why ANYONE would have any use whatsoever for a pager.

With that said...would you compare a smart watch to a smart phone? Would you call those "competing technologies" or would you say they work well together and enhance the overall wireless communication experience?

We think most would agree a smart phone is basically a necessity and a smart watch makes things even more convenient. Although, there are only a fraction of cell phone owners that have smart watches, for those that have both, they have a specific use for them and find them working together as a package even more useful than just using a smart phone by itself.

Do you see where we are going here?

A pager is yet another form of wireless communication...a tool that you can use for urgent priority notifications ALONG with your cell phone and your smart watch.

If you find yourself using a cell phone by itself and it works for you as most people do...That's great, but if you are like the majority of our clients, you most likely have a specific task that a pager or pager app on a cell phone does even better than just texting or voicemail on their phone. Perhaps you have cell phone signal reception issues in your area or need another way for your IMPORTANT calls to get through and get your attention...whatever the reason, the people using pagers today have found specific niche reasons why a pager or pager app compliments their cell phone and smart watch.

Primarily, a separate pager phone number offers privacy and a means for urgent notifications that stand out above and beyond text messaging and helps differentiate a normal text or phone call from a high priority, urgent phone call.

In 2024, our clients are faced with some unique challenges and situations that didn't exist even 5 years ago...

One example is robocalls / spam phone calls. Millions of junk phone calls are made daily. Some people are just fed up with getting calls from unknown numbers about their car warranty expiring or other scams and don't even answer the phone when they see a number they don't recognize. Today's latest smartphone operating systems allow smartphones to silence calls from unknown callers and send the calls directly to voicemail. With this enabled, sometimes important calls are missed. 

Another example is the banning of cellphones in schools.  Want a simple way to be able to get in touch with your child and let them know of an urgent message such as a schedule change or emergency at home?  Perhaps just a positive emotional reinforcement such as a "Good luck, You've got this" on the day of a big exam.  Give them an alphanumeric pager and simply send a short email to the pager's email address.

Link to our page regarding pagers for students

Text messages are so frequent that it's easy to miss a text. Social media and news alerts end up making your smart phone sound like a video game and now more than ever, important messages and calls are going unnoticed. If you need to be made aware of an urgent matter, a pager or pager app on your smartphone can be the one form of wireless notification that can stand above and beyond all other texts and calls and get your needed attention. If you give out your pager number to your most important contacts, you know that if the pager or pager app alerts you...it's most likely important and needs your immediate attention.

Doctors and health care providers have been using pagers for years. Doctors do not like to give out their personal cell phone number for privacy reasons but need to be notified in the event of an emergency. Pagers have been useful for this reason alone, not to mention their ear piercing alerts can wake someone up in the middle of the night much better than the faint ding of a text message or a phone that is set to vibrate or turned off during sleeping hours.

Now private individuals are realizing this benefit as well and using a pager for priority alerts.

When you think of a pager as not an antiquated relic that was used before cellphones became mainstream, but as an inexpensive way to get your attention for urgent priority critical notifications, then it makes sense why a pager may work for you when a cell phone alone isn't cutting it anymore. The people who use pagers in 2024 aren't using them as replacements for cell phones, they aren't people that are stuck in the 1990's and haven't yet moved to more advanced forms of communications, they are people that realize how a separate pager phone number and alert tone can differentiate an urgent message notification from a normal every day phone call or text that may not be as important or urgent.

Does everyone have these urgent notification needs? Of course not, but for those that do...A pager or smartphone pager app can be quite useful and may just be the solution you are looking for.