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How does the system know which tower to broadcast from though? Surely a pager message isn't transmitted from every tower everywhere.

by pfisch 2y ago

lxgr 2y ago
> Surely a pager message isn't transmitted from every tower everywhere. They generally are! Some systems required the sender to select a geographic region to increase bandwidth efficiency, or alternatively the pager owner to update their coarse-scale location with the operator after moving significant distances. The latter is what the old Iridium satellite pagers did (do?), for example. (Not sure how the new GDB-based ones work.)
- wkat4242 2y ago
  The new Iridium pagers are two-way as far as I've heard. Only the old ones were one-way. I think the service is finally being decommissioned due to the Iridium Next satellites not supporting it anymore. It has been supported for more than a decade without onboarding new customers though.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    > The new Iridium pagers are two-way as far as I've heard. Apparently that's optional: > Iridium Burst-enabled devices can be configured as receive-only so that no transmissions are made, a feature valued highly by some customer segments. (from https://www.iridium.com/services/iridium-burst/ https://www.iridium.com/services/iridium-burst/) > I think the service is finally being decommissioned due to the Iridium Next satellites not supporting it anymore. If that's the case, it would have been inoperable since 2017 – they deorbited the old satellites immediately after confirming deployment of the new ones.
kelnos 2y ago
That's exactly how they work, actually. Or at least worked, traditionally. There are assuredly some two-way pagers out there now. But yeah, you'd usually pay for service in a certain (large) geographic area, and if you wanted to take your pager out of that area while on a trip, or if you moved, you'd have to let the pager company know so they could start broadcasting in the new area.

How does the system know which tower to broadcast from though? Surely a pager message isn't transmitted from every tower everywhere.

by pfisch 2y ago

How does the system know which tower to broadcast from though? Surely a pager message isn't transmitted from every tower everywhere.

lxgr 2y ago

> Surely a pager message isn't transmitted from every tower everywhere. They generally are! Some systems required the sender to select a geographic region to increase bandwidth efficiency, or alternatively the pager owner to update their coarse-scale location with the operator after moving significant distances. The latter is what the old Iridium satellite pagers did (do?), for example. (Not sure how the new GDB-based ones work.)

wkat4242 2y ago
The new Iridium pagers are two-way as far as I've heard. Only the old ones were one-way. I think the service is finally being decommissioned due to the Iridium Next satellites not supporting it anymore. It has been supported for more than a decade without onboarding new customers though.
- lxgr 2y ago
  > The new Iridium pagers are two-way as far as I've heard. Apparently that's optional: > Iridium Burst-enabled devices can be configured as receive-only so that no transmissions are made, a feature valued highly by some customer segments. (from https://www.iridium.com/services/iridium-burst/ https://www.iridium.com/services/iridium-burst/) > I think the service is finally being decommissioned due to the Iridium Next satellites not supporting it anymore. If that's the case, it would have been inoperable since 2017 – they deorbited the old satellites immediately after confirming deployment of the new ones.

kelnos 2y ago

That's exactly how they work, actually. Or at least worked, traditionally. There are assuredly some two-way pagers out there now. But yeah, you'd usually pay for service in a certain (large) geographic area, and if you wanted to take your pager out of that area while on a trip, or if you moved, you'd have to let the pager company know so they could start broadcasting in the new area.