End of pagers in Japan

NHK -- Dec 04

Pagers are set to be finally phased out of use in Japan. The last remaining carrier says it will be stopping its service at the end of next September.

Pagers have been in use in Japan for 50 years. Subscriptions peaked in 1996 at more than 10 million.

But they became things of the past with the arrival of mobiles and later smartphones.

Tokyo Telemessage is the only pager service provider left in Japan. The company has about 1,500 customers in Tokyo and neighboring prefectures. Many are medical workers.

The company says it plans to use the pager frequency band to strengthen its disaster radio services for local authorities.

Dec 04 (ANNnewsCH) - 登場から50年。一時、契約が1000万件を超え、一世を風靡(ふうび)した「ポケットベル」のサービスが来年9月で終了することになりました。 全国で唯一、ポケベルの通信サービスを展開する「東京テレメッセージ」は3日、来年9月末にサービスを停止すると発表しました。