Pager: The communication tool devised originally for the US Police
Have you ever wondered how people used to communicate when they were outside home, long before mobile phones were invented? Many of them used to rely on a device named pager. Also called beeper, it was a portable mini radiofrequency device that enabled instant human communication, way ahead of email, SMS or WhatsApp texting. Men used to hang these devices from their belt loops or shirt pockets, while women attached them to their purse straps. While pagers no longer exist as they were replaced by portable phones, it did rule the communications during the later half of the 20th century. Let’s take a journey through the history and evolution of this device.
First used by the police
Around 1920s, an American inventor named Alfred J. Gross was contacted by the Detroit Police Department to make a communication device for them. Why? Because back in those days, Detroit was a centre of smuggling and by the time the cops reached a gang’s den to raid, they usually escaped from the back door, only minutes before their arrival. Tired of this cat and mouse game, their chief of police requested Gross to come up with a tool that would help them interact with the headquarters in case of an emergency. Long story short, Gross developed the first ever pager-like system that could receive a 10-word text from a tower nearby and helped the US police in shorthand communications.
World welcomes the first official telephone pager
Turns out, Gross wasn’t happy with his invention and kept modifying it, until he launched the very first telephone pager in 1949 and even filed a patent for the same. This particular beeper was first used in New York City’s Jewish Hospital to help doctors and other medical professionals stay in touch within 40 kilometres of a single transmitter tower. Interestingly, the\y used to pay USD 12 a month to carry around a 200-gram pager with them 24×7. This pager was mass produced for first responders (for critical communication) such as police, firefighters, and paramedics by Reevesound Company and was operated by Telanswerphone. Later, in 1958, the pager was authorised by the Federal Communications Commission for public use, both in the USA and abroad.
Motorola dominates pager market
In 1959, an American electronic engineer and the then Chief Operating Officer of telecom giant Motorola John Francis Mitchell decided to take the pager market to a whole new level when he realised that the device had a promising future. This is when he combined Motorola’s popular walkie talkie with automobile radio technology to launch the first ever transistorised pager. Within the next three years, Motorola collaborated with US Telephone monopolist Bell System and together introduced a personal pager called Bellboy radio paging system. It was launched in the Seattle World’s Fair 1962. This pager was the size of a small TV remote and could easily fit in the customers’ purse or pocket. The device had a small receiver that delivered a radio text with a beep (hence the name beeper). It instantly notified the pager carrier what action they should take when a message appeared on a mini display. The ability to store texts was the highlight feature of this beeper.
By the 1980s, people all around the globe were using beepers for all kinds of communication. Soon, Motorola came up with their Pagerboy I that had alphanumeric displays and allowed users to both send and receive texts digitally. With this, ushered the era of wide-area mass paging that reached the peak in the 1990s.
While Motorola stopped making pagers in 2001, Spok continues till date and provides one-way, two-way and even encrypted paging services to governments and international agencies that require discretion such as the CIA and RAW.