An introduction to paging
Paging is still in use today by organisations that need to send urgent information to people quickly and cheaply.
Paging was invented in 1956 at Guy's and St Thomas' hospital in London to alert doctors attending emergencies. Since then, paging has evolved in sophistication and today millions of messages are transmitted to people needing fast reliable messaging communications.
In the world of paging there are two distinct categories of system in operation. There are on-site paging systems that are used in hospitals and other establishments to convey information across a particular geographical site. The other is wide area paging, which offers similar features as on-site paging, but provides the radio coverage across the whole of the UK rather than in just one building.
At the heart of these paging systems are three types of paging message. The first is the alert message where the pager provides an audible alert, coining the phrase, ‘beep’ or ‘beeper’. The user who receives a beep message would contact the switchboard or control room to get the message. This type of message uses a tone pager.
Second, is the number message where the pager will beep and display a number message for the user to call. The number message pager provides more flexibility over the alert message pager if more than one person wants to get hold of you.
The number messages can be up to 20 digits in length and can represent information other than telephone numbers. Some popular examples would be 925 (finished work), 1426 0142 representing a NGR grid reference. This type of message uses a numeric pager.
The final message type is the word message, where the pager will beep and display a text message of up to 1000 characters. In this type of message any information or action can be conveyed to the user and acts much like a text message on a mobile telephone. This type of message uses a message or an alphanumeric pager.
Unlike any other present day radio network, the paging network sends the messaging information to all the wireless transmitters simultaneously. This means that one message can be sent to many people at the same time if they share the same pager alert number. This is referred to as a ‘paging broadcast’, and is one of the key factors why businesses and emergency organisations continue to use paging today.
