In this era, do people still remember the telephone pager, or commonly known as the beep button? (BB CALL, in fact, the real English is pager) In China, although telecommunications companies completely stopped pager business in 2011, this is not necessarily the case abroad. For example, neighboring Japan still has a telecommunications company that specializes in pager services ─ ─ Tokyo Telemessage. This is a legendary company at all.
Before starting the explanation, the author may have to explain what a pager is. After all, for generations under 30 this year, they have only seen mobile phones when they are sensible. The pager is a legendary ancient technology! The
mobile phone is not the era before the popular public. At that time, the popular communication method was mainly indoors. It was not a home phone or a fax machine for the company's line number. Long-distance radio walkie-talkies had to obtain an amateur radio license, and the equipment was also very noble. Generally speaking, there is a considerable threshold. So when a person leaves home, school, or work, it is very difficult for others to contact him or know his whereabouts. In the late 1980s, when salesmen, engineers, and freight drivers went out on the road, they "lost contact". If the company has new instructions, there is no way to notify them immediately. They can only wait for them to return to the company after their business trip, or wait for them to dial the public phone. Or return to the company by calling the store’s indoor phone. The
pager began to spread in this era. The technology is one-way wireless communication. When you use it, you can carry it on your body. When other people want to find a user, they only need to pick up the microphone and dial the user's pager number, and then use the nine-square phone key to input Specific code, hang up the call, the user's pager will be forced to ring (called the origin of BB CALL), you can view the text message translated from the caller number and code (that is, the predecessor of the text message), and then look for it nearby Reply from the public phone. Although
is now in the era of prosperous wireless mobile phones, two-way communication is the mainstream of today, but back to that era, people before the sixth grade still remember it with relish. The fifth-graders and aunts might use the pager to express love with all kinds of strange numbers when they were in college; the sixth-grade was probably a junior high school or high school kid, and the trouser pockets had to be sewn with several fold lines and waist. Hang up a pager to show off at school (it was a fashionable contradiction for kids back then)!
Popular film and television works such as "My Girls' Generation" and "Roll!" Ashin also describes this representative era of the 1990s. However, the memories are beautiful and the reality is cruel. Back in this era, where are there pagers available? There is a girl in Japan who doesn't believe in evil, she just wants to discover this forgotten technology again, her name is Fujiwara Marina. The useless inventor of
, Fujiwara Marina, declared on Twitter that he must touch the pager once in his life.
Fujiwara Mari cuisine? Was it the female inventor who came to Taiwan for an exhibition of useless inventions a while ago? That's right, she. Adhering to the interpretation of the theory of evolution: "The so-called evolution is not to eliminate inconveniences but to make choices more diversified." Fujiwara is still looking for better portable message receivers. In today’s society where the amount of personal information is exploding, too much information makes us distracted and unable to concentrate. It would be better to receive only the minimum necessary information. Therefore, she believes that the most ideal thing is a pager, not a cheap SIM card, and not the Internet. network. But how can anyone sell pagers or even telecommunications companies that provide pager services in this era? Emperor Tian paid for her pains and really let her find Tokyo Telemessage, the only telecommunications company in Japan that still provides pager services.
This is amazing. This kind of company can survive till now. Why? Where is it used? The first is a general traditional pager (yes, it still looks like it was in the 1990s). The company built a registration and consultation notification system for hospitals that includes a base station. The pager is used to lend to registered patients. When the number is called, it is used A text message informs patients to see a doctor in a designated clinic (in fact, some restaurants in Taiwan also use pager technology for meal picking devices); they are also provided to the fire brigade for emergency call notifications. Z2z
The countercurrent of the era? Of course, you will definitely feel that with these niche customers, how can this telecom company survive to this day? There is a very inspirational story behind this. BacktrackingThe history of Tokyo Telemessage, founded in 1986, is the first generation of Tokyo Telemessage, which specializes in telecom businesses such as pagers and fax services. It was acquired by YOZAN, a comprehensive telecom service company in 2001. However, good times are not common. In 2008, the parent company YOZAN Due to poor management, the Tokyo Telemessage division was split again until it became a fully independent company in 2011. This is the second generation of Tokyo Telemessage. However, pagers are really overwhelming. Even though there are still a few industries that still like to use pagers, they can’t afford the operating costs. Those years have been poorly operated until the 311 Great East Japan Earthquake occurred in 2011, and a turning point came. The
earthquake highlights the fragility of modern mobile phones ─ ─ rely heavily on dense base stations. When the base station is damaged or out of power, no matter how advanced the mobile phone’s earthquake warning notification technology is, it can’t be communicated. After that, the community’s traditional cable broadcasting system cannot transmit earthquake information after a power failure. This is a very big problem. However, the 280MHz radio wave used by the pager has the characteristic that as long as there is a central telecommunication tower, it can transmit messages to a wide range of areas, and has good penetration into the building. In addition, the pager is relatively power-saving (the traditional pager can reach 15 days), it can continue to transmit the real-time alarms of the Central Meteorological Bureau, which means that the old-fashioned one-way pager technology has better survivability in natural disasters, which brings great enlightenment to Tokyo Telemessage. So the company turned to the development of pager-related products for disaster prevention, and a complete set of solutions for Japanese local, county and city government units. The final plan of
is to set up computer rooms and telecommunications towers in government units, and then install broadcast audio/text broadcasters outside the community. Every household is subsidized by the government to purchase disaster prevention radios. The radios are actually pagers, FM/AM radios and emergency flashlights. When an earthquake wave comes or a dyke is about to break, when the weather unit’s monitor detects it and sends an alarm, the disaster prevention radio will flash the light and warn at the maximum volume, and residents can prepare early. After the disaster occurs, even if the power is interrupted and the mobile phone is unavailable, the latest disaster warning messages will continue to come (including the notification of where to evacuate), and the power can last for 3 days.
This is really a good thing, and Tokyo Telemessage's future is counting on it, so it started to promote its business. In the beginning, it was promoted from the countryside, counties and cities, and while working hard to promote it, it also had to struggle with the company's huge financial deficit. If the disaster prevention telecommunication products were not successful, the company would have to put it away. From 2011 to 2016, Tokyo Telemessage finally promoted and opened up this unique market and turned a profit. Even in 2019, the big city of Kyoto is also scheduled to introduce this system. Tokyo Telemessage has found the second spring for the old technology of the pager and found its value again.
Modern people are often superstitious that avant-garde new technology is always the best, traditional old technology is to be eliminated, but should we review new and new thinking and discover new value from mature and old technology? In fact, "creating the old" is also an innovation!
