Pagers

On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:54:25 +0100, "Pigeon" <[email protected]> wrote:

>I understand the BT Pagers don't work anymore. Do the Vodafone ones and/or
>Mercury?

As far as I know, Vodapager are the only operator left in the UK. They
work fine (I have two).

Mike.

---

› See More: Pagers

In message <[email protected]>, Mike
<[email protected]> writes
>On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:54:25 +0100, "Pigeon" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>I understand the BT Pagers don't work anymore. Do the Vodafone ones and/or
>>Mercury?
>
>As far as I know, Vodapager are the only operator left in the UK. They
>work fine (I have two).

The missus has a PageOne pager that works fine.

http://www.pageone.co.uk/
--
Gyp
Change to dotcom to reply

In article <[email protected]>, Pigeon
<[email protected]> scribeth thus
>Hi,
>
>I understand the BT Pagers don't work anymore. Do the Vodafone ones and/or
>Mercury?
>
>TIA.
>
>

BT or Cellnet rather shut theirs down some three years ago now.

Pageone are AFAIK the only one left in existence...
--
Tony Sayer

"Mike" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:54:25 +0100, "Pigeon" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>I understand the BT Pagers don't work anymore. Do the Vodafone ones and/or
>>Mercury?
>
> As far as I know, Vodapager are the only operator left in the UK. They
> work fine (I have two).
>
> Mike.
>
>




do they serve any purpose anymore? - other than for people who need to be
contacted but hate talking on mobile phones.



--
Gareth.

that fly...... is your magic wand....

In article <[email protected]>, The dog from that film you saw
<[email protected]> scribeth thus
>
>"Mike" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:54:25 +0100, "Pigeon" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>I understand the BT Pagers don't work anymore. Do the Vodafone ones and/or
>>>Mercury?
>>
>> As far as I know, Vodapager are the only operator left in the UK. They
>> work fine (I have two).
>>
>> Mike.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>do they serve any purpose anymore? - other than for people who need to be
>contacted but hate talking on mobile phones.
>
>
>

Still very popular within the medical profession on-site and wide area!...
--
Tony Sayer

"The dog from that film you saw" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
> >>I understand the BT Pagers don't work anymore. Do the Vodafone ones and/or
> >>Mercury?
> >
> > As far as I know, Vodapager are the only operator left in the UK. They
> > work fine (I have two).
> >
> > Mike.
> >
>
>
> do they serve any purpose anymore? - other than for people who need to be
> contacted but hate talking on mobile phones.

Anywhere where an RF transmitter is not allowed, eg hospitals, secure government
buildings etc.

--
Andy

tony sayer <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, The dog from that film you
> saw <[email protected]> scribeth thus
> >do they serve any purpose anymore? - other than for people who need to be
> >contacted but hate talking on mobile phones.
>
> Still very popular within the medical profession on-site and wide area!...

I had a brief look at the PageOne site and the only benefit I could see is
that they do synchronous delivery. So at 23:59 on 31st December you can
send a message saying 'Emergency: gas leak at 123 Business Park' and have it
received straightaway rather than waiting hours in the queue with the 'Happy
New Year' texts.

Theo

Mercury, when it was taken over by Cable and Wireless, got rid of their
paging business and it became Page One. They also took over many BT
customers that still needed a pager when BT closed down their operation.

Vodafone bought Air Call a few years ago.

Hutchison Paging closed down first of all - pity as they were by far the
best.

So apart from private paging systems such as those used by the Fire
Services, the RNLI, the Coastguard etc, the only (public) paging systems
still active are Page One and VodaPage.

You will have to search however for a PAYG pager although they are
available from both operators.



--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

The message <[email protected]>
from "The dog from that film you saw" <[email protected]>
contains these words:


> "Mike" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:54:25 +0100, "Pigeon" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >>I understand the BT Pagers don't work anymore. Do the Vodafone ones and/or
> >>Mercury?
> >
> > As far as I know, Vodapager are the only operator left in the UK. They
> > work fine (I have two).
> >
> > Mike.
> >
> >




> do they serve any purpose anymore? - other than for people who need to be
> contacted but hate talking on mobile phones.


I always used one when on call at work, I would not have the company
mobile phone switched on outside office hours.

The company wanted us all to use mobile all the time inside of landline
phones and only listed the mobile number, people would call it without
checking whether you were working or not. Most would ignore a pager
number so you would only be called by our operations people when there
was a call-out.

SMS are not reliable for call-outs because there is no guarantee of
delivery time which can be seconds, minutes, hours or even days.



MB

MB wrote:

> SMS are not reliable for call-outs because there is no guarantee of
> delivery time which can be seconds, minutes, hours or even days.

That said, there are areas round here where the page one pager doesn't
work, and of course with it being one way the system has no idea if
pages are delivered or not.

The message <[email protected]>
from Gyp <[email protected]> contains these words:

> MB wrote:

> > SMS are not reliable for call-outs because there is no guarantee of
> > delivery time which can be seconds, minutes, hours or even days.

> That said, there are areas round here where the page one pager doesn't
> work, and of course with it being one way the system has no idea if
> pages are delivered or not.


They also have several channels and not all channels cover all areas.

I think it is PageOne that are now marketing a priority paging service
for emergency service use.

MB

The message <[email protected]>
from Mike <[email protected]> contains these words:

> On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:35:52 +0100, MB <[email protected]> wrote:

> >SMS are not reliable for call-outs because there is no guarantee of
> >delivery time which can be seconds, minutes, hours or even days.

> I use a call-out system that sends messages simultaneously to a
> Vodapage pager and by SMS to a mobile phone. In my experience, the
> pager is much more timely and reliable with the message usually
> arriving within a couple of seconds. The SMS sent at the same time
> often takes several minutes. Delays of more than an hour are unusual
> but do happen and I think I've had a couple in the last few years that
> took many hours to arrive.

> A disadvantage of the pager, though, is that messages are transmitted
> blind without any handshake from the receiving device (unlike SMS to a
> mobile phone). So it's possible to be out of coverage, such as in a
> metal-framed building, and not receive the message at all. Using both
> pager and SMS seems to be the best solution.

> Mike.

A friend was involved in setting up a system for some large
organisations, he visited several of the mobile phone operators but none
could guarantee delivery time for SMS so they stuck to pagers.

A pager is a lot more convenient if you are on call for work, you clip
on your belt with a new battery and forget it until it goes off. One
button press to read the message. As I wrote previous, you do not get
every Tom, Dick and Harry calling you as you do with a mobile phone.



MB