Not only Hezbollah: professionals who still use pagers in Israel

The tiktok, instosh and chapeta generation does not know the device that was the evolution of the cell phone at all. It was called a “beeper” and it allowed journalists, doctors, technicians and managers to receive messages even from the middle of nowhere. Today we learned that the device we thought was dying is still being used by Hezbollah.

The pager, a device that receives short messages and alerts the user with a beep, was originally invented in the United States in the 1920s. The entrepreneur Al Gross, who also invented the first small radio, developed the pager in the 1940s. Initially, the pager was used in security and public systems in the United States, mainly in hospitals and emergency units. In the 1950s, the pager received approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for widespread commercial use, thus beginning as a personal communication solution.

In Israel, the pager became a particularly popular device from the seventies to the beginning of the nineties. The use of the device was common among professionals who needed to be available all the time, such as doctors, emergency forces, security workers and business people. For them, the pager served as an effective means of staying in touch even outside the workplace, without the need for a landline. The users received a short voice or text message with a request to call a certain number.

The working mechanism of the pager was based on the transmission of radio waves to frequencies specially assigned to each device. When a message was received, the device would beep, prompting the user to call back. As technology developed, the devices were upgraded and became smaller and shorter messages (numbers or single words) could appear on the pager’s small display.

The operation of the pager was simple but ingenious: when someone wanted to convey a message to the owner of the pager, he would call the pager center and deliver the message to the center operator. The message was sent using a radio frequency adapted to the user’s dedicated device. Upon receiving the message, the pager would beep loudly (hence its Hebrew name – beeper), or vibrate in some cases.

The message usually included the phone number the user was required to call back to, and sometimes shorter messages as well. The user had to access a payphone or landline to return the message. The limitations were clear – the device did not allow two-way calls, but it was enough to transmit urgent messages with relative immediacy for the time.

In the 1990s, with the breakthrough of the cell phone market to the mass market, the use of the pager began to fade rapidly. Mobile phones offered wider communication options, with the ability to make calls from anywhere, send text messages and offer additional services. The cell phone became more accessible, and the pager lost its place as the main means of communication for professionals and institutions.

In Israel, the Pelephone company, which began operating in the late 1980s, led the cellular revolution, and the professionals, who until then relied on the pager, quickly switched to using mobile phones. By the end of the nineties, the use of pagers almost disappeared from the public sphere in Israel.

Despite the sharp decline in the use of pagers among the general public, there are still specific areas where the pager continues to be used, albeit on a limited scale. One of the main areas where the pager remains relevant is the field of health services. Doctors and medical staff, mainly in emergency rooms, still use pagers due to their high reliability in the field and in buildings where mobile phones do not always receive, such as basements and other closed places.
In addition, some of the emergency and security systems still use pagers as a backup for the more advanced communication systems, due to the simplicity and reliability of the device. Thus, even today, in an age of advanced technology, the pager continues to play a limited but essential role in some sectors.