The pager, the first compact mobile communication tool, revolutionized messaging when it entered the mass market. Although largely replaced by smartphones, pagers are still used today, especially for their reliability and ability to bypass mobile networks. This makes them valuable in sectors like healthcare, where their use persists in hospitals, particularly in the U.S.
Pagers gained attention on Tuesday after a coordinated explosion of hundreds of devices used by Hezbollah members across Lebanon, an attack the militant group attributed to Israel. Hezbollah turned to pagers to avoid breaches in mobile phone communications after the October 7 attack by Hamas ignited the Gaza war.
Historically, pagers peaked in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, with 61 million in use globally by 1994. The first pager was patented in 1949 by Alfred Gross, and the term “pager” was officially registered by Motorola in 1959, with its first model, the Pageboy 1, created in 1964.