After serving for 50 years, Japan finally shuts down its last pager service. (Image via The Straits Times)

Thank you, Pager! After 50 years, the last pager service to close on Tuesday

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Business & Industry
Electronic Device
Oct 01, 2019
2282
It’s time for the Japanese to bid “adieu” to the pager. The last pager service operating in Japan, Tokyo Telemessage, is going to turn off its radio signal for pager on Tuesday at 00.00 am local time. It is evident that by the entrance of smartphones in civilization, the pager is left behind.

Introduced in 1968 with Beeper as its first provider, the pager’s function can be said as the “grandfather” of the mobile phone. Japanese companies used the pager to contact their salespersons when they were out of office.

In 1980, the popularity of pager grew significantly because then it could be used to send messages with a combination of numbers and characters. The number of pager users in Japan exceeded 10 million in 1996. The pager has been acknowledged as one of the pop culture symbols, popular among the high school girls in Japan.

However, when services such as e-mail, picture sharing, and texting were introduced along with the entrance of mobile phones, the number of pager users decreased more and more.

Although the number was decreasing as the smartphone is more favored, hospital workers still had to use pager because it emits less electromagnetic waves on medical devices and pager signal works better than mobile phones. Tokyo Telemessage revealed that the number of pager users in Tokyo was only 1,500.

All that we can say now is “Thank you, and goodbye, pager”! Thank you for your almost 50-year service! But, is it the end for the pager radio signal? Not necessarily. Tokyo Telemessage said that the radio signal would be used by local governments to channel disaster radio services.

Source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190930/p2g/00m/0bu/081000c

Business , Telecommunications , Asia , Japan , Gadget , Pager