As a late 2000s kid I always see pagers in TV, how do you setup and use one and how do they work?
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Before cellphones took off, pagers were very popular for years. There’s a huge variety in what they can do and exactly how it’s done. But here’s an overview.
You as a consumer don’t need to do much of anything to set one up. When you buy one, a phone number is assigned to it. When someone calls that number, the call goes to a paging operator. Most commonly (but not always) the caller then enters a phone number that they want the pager wearer to call back to, using a telephone. More about that later.
That operator has equipment that sends out a strong radio signal (usually a lot stronger than cellphone signals). This signal includes information that indicates that the message being sent is for one particular pager.
Every pager in the broadcast area that uses that frequency band/protocol receives the signal, but only the one that is targeted responds to that message.
There are lots of different paging protocols and types of pagers, and so the information that the pager receives/uses varies too. For example, a restaurant pager might just be told “turn on” or “turn off”. Many pagers will simply display a phone number for the recipient to call. Some pagers can receive full text messages.
One thing that no true pager does is send any signal back. But there are some cell phones that can also act like pagers which are capable of doing so.
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