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Who still uses pagers? (www.voanews.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe you could read the article and learn something:

But the tiny electronic devices remain a vital means of communication in some areas - such as health care and emergency services, thanks to their durability and long battery life.

"It's the cheapest and most efficient way to communicate to a large number of people about messages that don't need responses," said a senior surgeon at a major U.K. hospital, adding that pagers are commonly used by doctors and nurses across the country's National Health Service (NHS). "It's used to tell people where to go, when, and what for."

Smartphones do a lot of things that might not be needed (look into how many different sensors they have). Sometimes a person doesn't have access to a charger or time to charge a device and running out of battery could mean someone dies.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

To add to your point regarding additional functions inherent in smartphones: pagers do one thing. They're relatively simple devices. Simplicity means that there are fewer things that can cause the device to function incorrectly or fail to function altogether. In hospital communications use-cases, this is a huge benefit.

Additionally, pagers are relatively inexpensive. Therefore, it's much more effective to have multiple spares available for distribution compared to smartphones. If a pager is inoperable, it can quickly be swapped out with a backup while the original is repaired or replaced. Smartphones do not carry that benefit.