from the change-isn't-always-progress dept.
The CBC announces:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/telus-pager-service-cancellation-worries-rural-communities-1.2927950
Some residents of Quebec’s rural communities are worried after receiving a letter saying Telus is cancelling its pager service across Canada, effective March 31.
The potential problem? Many of the province’s rural municipalities do not have cellphone service. As a result, they rely on the pager system to reach health-care workers and emergency responders.
As outlined in the CBC article, one suggestion is that organizations can create their own paging networks with "two-way radios, an antenna, a broadcast licence, an encoder, a telephone-connected device and some pagers." While an expensive up-front cost, it would be a one time expense.
Telus has stated that the discontinuation of pager service is just a reflection of the times. With fewer people using the system, it has reached the end of its service life and that they are hard at work expanding their cellphone coverage.
Are there others who still use pagers?
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Saturday January 24 2015, @04:11AM
To me, pagers are just that beepy thing I see in that movie "Bruce Almighty", which happens to be one of my favorite movies.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 4, Informative) by Snotnose on Saturday January 24 2015, @05:55AM
You sound young. Back in the 90's carrying a pager was either a status symbol (you were important enough to get one), or the opposite (you weren't important enough to dodge pager duty).
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday January 24 2015, @04:14AM
...expand their cellphone coverage to cover all the same areas that their pager network does.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 24 2015, @04:39AM
Why not?
They probably had to get government licenses to start their pager service, and more licenses to expand their cell service.
Pretty sure some government agency could just make a connection between new licenses and maintaining critical services. Its all sunk costs by this point.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 24 2015, @04:53AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday January 24 2015, @07:42AM
It's not like I'm an emergency responder.
My gripe is that I can't get anything done when I receive a phone call. I keep telling people to email me and that I hover over my email all day long, but no they want to talk. I even had to switch to an unlimited minutes plan because the tech recruiters kept blowing through my minutes asking questions like "How many years of Java experience do you have? How many years of Agile experience do you have? How many years of Swift experience do you have? How many years of Xcode 6.1 experience do you have? How many years of Windows 10 experience do you have".
Try emailing me at mdcrawford@gmail.com The autoresponse you'll receive is what I've done to get the recruiters off my back.
However there really are people that I need to speak to on the phone. When they need to call me, I need to answer but my phone rings so very often that I don't even look at my caller ID. Commonly I set it to vibrate then leave my phone in my computer bag.
A pager would solve most of this problem. I expect that the service is quite cheap.
I discovered back when I was into oil painting that wearing surgical scrubs is a good way to pick up chicks. Now imagine what would ensue were I to Dress For Success and carry a pager!
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Saturday January 24 2015, @05:14PM
Obviously don't have all of the details, but I'd be very surprised of Telus wouldn't agree to donate the hardware, antenna etc. to the local municipalities.
Not ideal, but if they only need local (ish) pager coverage they could assume the operating costs.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by caseih on Saturday January 24 2015, @10:27PM
If Telus won't maintain it, then the government needs to simply take it over. Clearly Telus does not want to subsidize a certain segment of the market that is probably losing them money. Given that this service is so clearly important to public health and safety, this is a clear instance where the Govenment needs to just run the network with tax dollars. That's really what governments exist for. Give Telus a token amount for it (they are going to have to spend money to dismantle it anyway), and go on and keep it running until something better is created.
Alternatively, grant spectrum rights for free to any company, community, or organization who wants to set up their own local cell towers in these remote places. Clearly the monopolies have no interest in this anyway.