Comment by delecti

8 years ago

Most wifi hotspots have location information anyway, so your phone will know where it is, and then one of the many apps on your phone can report back with that information.

And isn't a pager just a really simple cell phone? I'm not sure how that's a solution if cell towers can triangulate your position.

4 comments

delecti

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xfitm3  8 years ago

I should have been clearer: One way pagers seem to still exist. They do not transmit.

  • ghostly_s  8 years ago

    Isn't this just a billing distinction though? A 'receive only' pager still needs to announce itself to the cell tower to have messages routed...pretty sure they're not just multicast across the entire global cell network?

    • pdkl95  8 years ago

      > cell network

      Pagers do not use the cellular network. (some cellular networks do provide paging-style services, but that is a later development that is unrelated to traditional pagers)

      > A 'receive only' pager still needs to announce itself

      A traditional pager doesn't have a radio transmitter.

      > they're not just multicast

      The message is broadcast region-wide using very low-bandwidth protocols[1]. A pager will generally only work inside the region it is registered with. To compensate for the lack of ACKs, the message is usually repeated several times; it will missed if the pager is off for all of the transmissions.

      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLEX_%28protocol%29