- Pagers, sometimes known by the more antiquated term "beepers," receive messages sent either over the phone or across the Internet. If a person wants to page someone and has access to a telephone, that person can dial the intended person's pager number to enter a message; depending on the type of pager the subscriber uses, the caller may dial either a local number or a toll-free number with a private extension. When the paging system answers, the caller can use the telephone keypad to enter a message or, if the pager is so equipped, may choose to leave a voice message that the recipient can retrieve later.
- When the caller enters a number or leaves a message, specialized software translates the entry into a format suitable for transmission to the pager. The paging information, such as the time of the message and the number to call (or alpha characters if available) are translated first into a digital representation consisting of ones and zeros, and then into a radio message. The radio message is sent out to the paging company's network--which may be located in a single community or spread out around the country--and broadcast from the company's towers on a radio frequency reserved for pager messages. When the pager receives the message, it decodes the radio transmission into a computer-readable binary format and determines if it is the intended recipient. If it is, the binary code is translated back into human-readable characters and displayed on the pager screen.
- While the basic premise of paging is quite simple and easily automated, it only allows sending of messages entered using a touch-tone telephone or messages that indicate a new voicemail message has been received. Some pagers, known as alphanumerics, are capable of decoding and displaying far more complex information such as text messages and punctuation. To use these pagers, the subscriber may use the service of an operator who takes messages, types them into a computer and broadcasts the text-based message to the pager. As technology improves, some companies are moving to automated software that eliminates the manual interaction through the use of speech-to-text algorithms.
