All the retained and volunteer fire stations around the UK use pagers, because they're simple, reliable, and moderately firefighter-resistant - and about 70 qui

All the retained and volunteer fire stations around the UK use pagers, because they're simple, reliable, and moderately firefighter-resistant - and about 70 quid to replace when they get smashed, deep-sixed, melted, driven over by the pump, or chewed by a dog. Yes, this week alone. They're used for alerting rather than paging, in that the message is four flashing LEDs and a lot of beeping rather than a description of the incident, and as such the paging transmitters just transmit a unique number rather than a message. The message is always "get to the fire station right now".