With the transformation Mobile phones To a major communication tool in the world, walkie-talkies known as (pager) is largely a thing of the past, with demand for it declining after peaking in the 1990s.
But these small electronic devices are still a vital means of communication in some areas such as healthcare and emergency services, thanks to their durability and long battery life.
“It’s the cheapest and most efficient way to communicate with a large number of people in terms of sending messages that don’t need a response,” says a senior surgeon at a major British hospital, adding that pagers are widely used by doctors and nurses across the country’s National Health Service.
“They are used to tell people where to go, when and why,” he explains.
Pagers made headlines Tuesday when thousands of devices used by Hezbollah members were simultaneously detonated across Lebanon, killing at least 12 people and wounding nearly 3,000.
A senior Lebanese security source and another source said that the Israeli intelligence agency (Mossad) He is the one who planted explosives inside these devices.
The UK’s National Health Service was using about 130,000 pagers in 2019, more than 10% of all pagers in the world, according to government data. More recent figures are not available.
Doctors working in hospital emergency departments carry these devices while on duty.
Many walkie-talkies can also send out a siren and then broadcast a voice message to groups so that entire medical teams are alerted at once to an emergency, says a senior NHS doctor. This is not possible with a mobile phone.
A source familiar with the matter at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution told Reuters that the institution uses pagers to alert its crews. The institution declined to comment.
Mobile phones
Pagers can be more difficult to track than smartphones because they lack modern navigation technologies such as GPS. Global Positioning (GPS).
This has made it a popular choice among criminals, especially drug dealers in the United States in the past.
But gangs are using cell phones more these days, former FBI agent Ken Gray told Reuters.
“I don’t know if anyone uses them (pagers), they’ve all moved to cell phones and prepaid phones,” which can be easily disposed of and replaced with another phone with a different number, making them difficult to track, the American agent continued.
Criminals have changed with the times and newer technology, said Gray, who served 24 years in the FBI and now teaches criminal justice and homeland security at the University of New Haven.
The global pager market — once a major revenue generator for companies like Motorola — is set to reach $1.6 billion in 2023, according to an April report by Cogent Market Research.
This represents a tiny fraction of the global smartphone market, which is estimated to be worth around half a trillion dollars by the end of 2023.
But demand for pagers is growing as the number of patients increases, creating a greater need for effective communication in the healthcare sector, according to the report, which forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 5.9% from 2023 to 2030.
The report stated that North America and Europe are the largest markets for pagers, generating $528 million and $496 million in revenue, respectively.
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