What is a pager?

A pager (also often called a buzzer or beeper) is a wireless, and usually small device, that can receive or send signals or messages. However, most pager types are one-way communication.

Communicating via a pager goes back many years. As far back as the 1950s, the first pager appeared in the United States, which was a time when mobile phones did not exist. Many people have properly seen films from the 50s or 60s where an officer or doctor got a message on the little pager they had in their belt. The message was a phone number that paged them, and one then had to go to a landline phone to call that number.

In fact, it can be said that the very first experience of paging that the world had was all the way back in the telegraph era, when the messages were morse code signals.

It is clear that the mobile phones have taken over much of the communication that has been done via pager, but pager has still survived the many years since that time. Today, pagers are still used to notify recipients. Be it e.g., in the restaurant industry where pager is used to call on the guest when the food is done. Or if people are waiting for a table in a restaurant.

Wherever people are waiting can potentially be using a pager to save time, resources or to get queues away. Hospitals use them for waiting patients who can then wait elsewhere than just in a small waiting room. Pager can be used for trucks waiting to be able to drive to a ramp when it becomes available.

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It can be in clinics or e.g., at veterinarians where you do not want people to sit close in the same room, then with the help of a pager you can get waiting people to wait outside or at some distance.

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So a pager is still widely used, but it is clear that the old-fashioned pager where the recipient should find a phone and call the sender is more or less gone. In England, which like the United States is a large pager country, the national health service NHS has long ago decided that the old-fashioned pager should be phased out. However, this does not prevent you from still using pagers for waiting patients.

But a pager today is also more than just a small square thing with a display in. Today they come in many shapes and sizes, and what it is used for naturally has a meaning. There are small pagers that are most often used either as self-service pagers where guests in a restaurant or café is waiting for food. https://discoversystems.com/product/silent-ordering-system/

In hospitals, a pager is used as a kind of electronic queuing ticket in a queuing system, and can be of many sizes and shapes; https://discoversystems.com/product/patientcall/

In the logistics industry a queuing system for waiting trucks, a larger pager is often used, as there is a risk that drivers may fall asleep during the waiting time, and therefore a pager with a louder sound must be used; https://discoversystems.com/product/driver-pager-system/

As a pager for different industries, there may also be different solutions. Whether it is a pager that is to function as a waitercall, or it is another type of pager, there are many options depending on whether the most important thing is the quality or price of a pager.

No matter what function or job a pager has, it comes with many different names and types. Here are some of them;

Pager
noun [ C ]
UK  /ˈpeɪ.dʒər/
US  /ˈpeɪ.dʒɚ/

(UK also bleeper, beeper, buzzer, restaurant buzzer, restaurant pager, restaurant buzzer, coaster, coaster pager, staff pager, server pager, waiter pager);

(US also beeper, buzzer, restaurant buzzer, restaurant pager, restaurant buzzer, coaster, coaster pager, staff pager, server pager, waiter pager)