Paging machine is also called BP machine, pager, BB machine, or simply called pager. beeper, pager

In 1983, the first domestic paging station was opened in Shanghai, and BP machines entered China.

Instant communication starting from BP machines has brought people into an era where there is no distance between time and space. People can be found everywhere at any time, which greatly speeds up people’s life and work efficiency, but it also leaves people with nowhere to hide. . People love and hate it, but they can no longer live without it.

User receiver in wireless paging system. It usually consists of a superheterodyne receiver, decoder, control part and display part. After receiving the signal, the pager will sound or vibrate and display relevant information. Short name machine.

In the past, mobile phones were relatively popular communication tools. They were small and compact. They were popular in China, Asia and even around the world at the end of the last century.

People who use pagers can communicate and contact easily and quickly, so pagers are very popular. In fact, the wireless paging system is a one-way broadcast wireless selective calling system without voice. It includes a base station and several peripheral base stations, data circuits, paging terminals and pagers. The paging terminal centrally processes the called user number and the calling user's message sent from the telephone network to implement functions such as repeated calls, station resumption inquiries, statistics and billing, etc., and then encodes and converts them into a certain code type and format. Digital signals are transmitted to each base station and peripheral stations through data circuits, and are simultaneously transmitted by these base transmitters. After the called pager receives the signal transmitted by the base station, information will be displayed.

A pager is a radio receiver worn by the user. The BP machine has two modes: manual tandem and automatic tandem. The corresponding paging stations are called manual paging stations and automatic paging stations. Manual paging stations require manual operation to encode this information and send signals through the transmitter. The automatic paging station automatically finds the pager's phone number based on the line number of the incoming call and sends it out at the same time, so that the paged person knows which phone is paging. The pagers we often use are divided into two categories: digital pagers and Chinese pagers. Digital pagers are compact, low-priced, and practical. The Chinese pager directly displays Chinese characters and the information is easy to identify.

Edit how to use this paragraph

If you want to find person A but he is not at home

Just call the paging station,

A, call you back quickly

After A sees it, he will call you back through the public phone number

Edit this historical introduction

When pagers first appeared, anyone who had a pager would be very enviable. At that time, people also called it a "pager", a BB machine, and a BP machine. Being able to own a pager became a very popular thing at that time. One of the great wishes of man. In the late 1980s, pagers began to appear in our country. With the maturity of science and technology and the increase of social demand, paging stations have mushroomed all over our province since 1990. The prosperity of the paging market has made the competition among paging stations increasingly fierce. The means is the service fee price war. At that time, some paging stations had relatively high service, with network access fees of 100 yuan, digital machines costing 180 yuan per year (15 yuan per month), and Chinese character machines costing 600 yuan per year (50 yuan per month). For competing users, paging station network access fees increased from the initial The 100 yuan was reduced to 50 yuan, 30 yuan, and finally free Internet access. The service fee was also reduced to 120 yuan per year for digital machines, and 300 to 400 yuan per year for Chinese character machines or even lower. In order to reach more users, some paging stations have also added content such as weather forecasts, stock information, news, etc., each of which costs 2 yuan per month. Fierce competition brought benefits to the common people, and in the end all information was sent free of charge.

In 1993 and 1994, mobile phones began to slowly appear. However, what was common at that time were trunked phones with a single function, often referred to as "big bricks". Each one cost 20,000 to 30,000 yuan. Only big bosses could afford it. Holding it in their hands was like a status symbol. It was very impressive, because only a few people could afford it at the time.

Beginning in the second half of 1995, the paging business was gradually defeated by the powerful offensive of mobile phones, and the number of paging users began to stop increasing. The decline began in 1996, with fewer users and a sharp decline in the number of paging stations. Currently, there are only four paging stations left in the province: China Unicom 126, China Tietong 95828, Landun 95910, and Wansheng 95900. Users have also dropped from 2.8 million households in the province that year to currently estimated to be less than 10,000 households. When reporters interviewed recently, some paging stations no longer handle network access services and only serve former users.

Edit the evolution roadmap of this paragraph

Analog BP machine → digital BP machine, Chinese character BP machine → mobile phone, MSN and other instant messaging tools

Shanghai in 1983 Users only use analog signal BP machines. Users can only receive call signals and need to call the paging station to find out the call-back number. The digital paging station opened in Guangzhou the following year solved this problem. Early BP machines were all imported products, with brands including Motorola, Panasonic, etc. Later, the domestic company Inspur cooperated with Motorola to develop a Chinese character BP machine, allowing users to know the content of the call without having to search for a phone on the street.

With the price falling repeatedly, by the end of the 1990s, the BP machine had become a highly popular product. However, as the first generation of instant messaging tools, BP machines are more like a transitional role. With the popularity of mobile phones, BP machines have gradually withdrawn from the market. However, now we are inseparable from instant messaging tools. Mobile phones, MSN or QQ have become necessities in many people's lives.

Pioneer Monument

Motorola, one of the earliest brand owners of BP machines, relies on the brand recognition established by BP machines and analog mobile phones, and it is still the most mainstream instant messaging tool today. ——Maintaining market leadership in the 2G mobile phone field.

Racing for All Beings

The first paging signal in China was sent from a bathroom in the Overseas Chinese Store in Shanghai. Initially, there was only one paging seat. It was for the fifth session. The paging service opened for the National Games in Shanghai only has more than 30 users.

Spreading Impressionism "Call me if you have anything!"

The BP machine can only receive radio signals, but cannot send signals, so it is a one-way mobile communication tool.

The ordinary digital pager is compact in appearance, smaller than a pack of cigarettes, and can be easily placed in a pocket or clipped to the waist. Once it receives the paging signal, it will make several slight "B—, B—" sounds to remind people to pay attention. In order not to disturb others, you can also turn off the sound switch, and the pager will only emit bursts of mechanical vibration, like a slight vibration like a massager, which only the carrier can feel. After the pager receives the signal, some Arabic numerals and English characters will be displayed on the LCD screen, which represent the phone number and short words. Displaying English characters made it inconvenient for Chinese people to use, so there was a Chinese character display BP machine. This BP machine can not only display phone numbers, but also transmit simple information. Some professional stations can also publish some professional information, such as agricultural paging stations publishing the day's grain prices, vegetable and seed prices, etc. In summer, people can also know the price of watermelon through the BP machine. This BP machine has multiple functions and is generally popular.

There are currently a variety of BP machines, with more than a dozen shapes alone. Some are like a pocket diary, small and exquisite; some are like a card, very light; some are like a ballpoint pen, which can be inserted into the pocket of a coat; some are even made into corsages or necklaces and hung on the chest. Some are integrated with a watch, worn on the hand, and used to keep time, and become a BP machine when someone calls.

The girl dialed the number of the paging station through the wired phone. After the call was connected, she told the operator the BP number she wanted to page and her name and phone number, and then hung up the phone and waited. The operator at the paging station immediately inputs the above information into the computer, and the transmitter automatically sends the call information to the air under the control of the computer.

You may ask, since the radio waves emitted by the paging station can cover a certain area, why can the BP machine in this area only receive calls to itself, but not other paging stations? What about human signals?

It turns out that each BP machine has its own number, which is stored on the computer of the paging station. The message sent by the paging station carries this number, which can only activate the corresponding BP machine and has no effect on other BP machines. This is like a postman who delivers the letter according to the user's house number, and there is no mistake.

After hearing the sound of "B—, B—", the girl's friend turned on the display switch, and a number requesting a call back appeared on the screen. Therefore, her friend could find a phone nearby and call her. Girls call.

The public paging station numbers in our country are 126 and 127. There are also some professional paging stations with 7-digit or 6-digit numbers. 126 and 127 are both public stations, but the methods of use are different. Station 126 is answered and connected by an operator and is a manual paging station, while station 127 is controlled by a computer and is called an automatic paging station. The girl above is using a manual paging station. If you want to page through station 127, after the call is connected, you will hear only the pre-recorded prompts, such as "Please continue dialing". Then you have to send the paged number through the buttons of the phone in your hand. After receiving these signals, the computer of the paging station will verify them and send out paging in the wireless channel.

Some paging devices are also connected to your home telephone. If no one answers after a certain period of time after the phone rings, the incoming call will automatically be forwarded to the paging station.

Pagers are small in size, light in weight, cheap and easy to use, which makes them widely used in various industries.

When doctors make rounds in the ward, they can carry a BP machine with them. If there is an emergency patient in the operating room and the doctor needs to return immediately, the BP machine can be used to call. If the cooperation of assistants, nurses, anesthetists, etc. is required, the special paging function of the paging station - group paging, will summon all the paged persons with "one command" without the need for individual notifications.

Conductors and engineers at construction sites often work on site. After being equipped with pagers, no matter where they go, if there is an emergency, they can be found immediately through the paging station.

In large hotels, people can look for waiters or maitre d's through internal paging stations. Store and company managers can use the paging station to find buyers who are out working.

Pagers can also carry out roaming services, which is similar to roaming in mobile phones. When you travel out of town on business, you don't have to worry about people finding you because people can call you through the local paging station.

Nowadays, more and more people own BP machines, and the sound of BP machines can be heard in every corner of the city. People proudly patted the "Electric Cricket" on their waists and said, "It's so convenient to have it!"

In a pasture in southwest Japan, even the cows were lucky enough to be equipped with BP machines. In order to facilitate the management of cattle, ranchers came up with the strange trick of using pagers. When grazing, a BP machine is hung around the neck of each cow. When the BP machine makes a call, the cows will "consciously" return to the cowshed from the pasture upon hearing the sound.

Edit this paragraph to a popular classic: pager

With the development of science and technology, the once-famous pager has gradually moved away from our lives, and has also entered the era of "only hidden but not hidden". CALL” era.

The radio paging system is a one-way mobile communication method that transmits information, and the pager is actually a signal receiver, which is used to receive the paging signal sent by the paging station. In 1948, Bell Labs in the United States developed the world's first pager, named Bell Boy. After entering the 1970s, the use of new technologies laid the foundation for the large-scale promotion of pagers. Nowadays, when its practical significance is getting weaker and weaker, the collection of pagers should still attract our attention.

The key to the collection value of pagers lies in three major factors: first, pagers are an important stage that cannot be ignored in the history of modern communication development; second, pagers have formed various brands and models in the process of development in our country. product system, collecting them is both interesting and difficult; thirdly, compared with fashionable collections such as watches and mobile phones, pagers are cheaper and less expensive to collect, especially today when pagers are gradually being phased out. Many second-hand pagers can be purchased for only a few yuan to more than ten yuan, making them suitable for public collection.

At present, there are three main categories to consider for pager collection: First, the Motorola brand series collection. In the paging industry, the American company Motorola is undoubtedly the leader. At the beginning, Motorola pagers accounted for more than 70% of the domestic market. In the period from 1993 to 1998, Motorola developed a large number of pagers to meet the needs of the market. New styles and varieties of pagers have formed many series, such as Motorola Progressive, Motorola Fashion, Motorola Pocket, etc., which represent the highest level of pager production and the latest trend of pager fashion, and the model subdivisions are even more complicated. Therefore, if it can be collected in series, it will undoubtedly be a very meaningful and interesting thing.

The second is the collection of varieties with special significance. For example, in May 1993, China's first Chinese pager with independent intellectual property rights was successfully developed by Bird Company. In 1995, they successfully developed China's first stock information machine. In 1997, China's first high-speed Chinese character machine was born. In 1998 alone, Bird produced and sold 1.024 million pagers, ranking first among domestic brands. Bird successfully took off and won a place for the national industry in the competition in the pager market. Therefore, the Bird series pagers, especially those mentioned above, These "firsts" undoubtedly have high collection value. NEC, Panasonic, Kembo and many other Chinese and foreign brands may make collection more difficult because of their scarcity. In addition, pagers with different shapes are also worth collecting. At that time, in addition to the continuous expansion of functions, in order to attract the attention of consumers, many manufacturers also put a lot of thought into the design of pagers and launched some unique and interesting pagers. The types and quantities of these pagers were not There were many of them, and their popularity at that time was limited, so it is not very easy to find them now.

Edit this paragraph: The "paging era" is fading away

"At present, only some areas in the north of the country still use paging, while in the northwest, the paging industry is becoming history." Wang Lin, director of the Radio Management Division of the Communications Administration Bureau of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, said.

At the beginning of 2007, Gansu Province, located in the inland northwest of China, said goodbye to the "paging era". Jinchang North Road, located near Dongfanghong Square in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, was once the famous "Paging Street". At that time, most of the pager dealers in Lanzhou City were gathered. But now, pagers are no longer visible here, replaced by mobile phones with unique styles.

In the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the smallest province in western my country, there were 14 paging stations, 300 stations, and 350,000 users in 1997. But since 2000, the paging business has shrunk at an annual rate of 30%. By 2003, the local paging industry had only 5,000 users, 2 paging stations and 60 stations. Currently, there are only two paging stations left in Ningxia, China Unicom and China Railway Tong. Among them, China Unicom has only 5 stations and 500 users. Tietong has 12 stations and less than 1,000 users, and it is mainly used as a railway internal communication system.

"The current situation of the paging industry is an inevitable trend in the development of economy and communication technology.

"Professor Nie Hualin of the School of Economics and Management of Lanzhou University said that the continuous advancement of communication technology has continuously improved the functions of mobile phones and can almost replace the existing functions of all pagers; the continuous reduction of mobile phone tariffs and the introduction of various preferential measures have also made mobile phones more and more popular. Popularization has caused the paging industry to lose its price advantage; under market economy conditions, people's pace of life continues to accelerate, and they require faster, more convenient and cheaper communication methods, and mobile phones are obviously more in line with this demand.

Relevant data shows that as of the end of October 2007, the total number of mobile phone users in China has exceeded 320 million. In the first 10 months of 2007, the number of mobile phone users in China increased by an average of 5.5 million per month.

"Now China's mobile phone users. The economy and science and technology are both in a stage of rapid development. To adapt to the high-quality living standards and the ever-accelerating pace of work, it is necessary to continuously popularize and use more advanced communication tools. This is the result of the country's progress and development. "Said an ordinary citizen in Yinchuan City.

Edit this paragraph: Paging industry: Ten years of "profiteering era"

The paging industry is one of the earliest types of communications in China that was opened to the society. In 1984, Shanghai took the lead in launching wireless paging services in China. After the 1990s, the number of paging users in China increased year by year, and the paging industry created an era of huge profits in the four years from 1995 to 1998. The number of new paging users every year is more than 15.93 million. 2000 was the year when China's paging industry reached its peak. Since then, it has declined sharply, and the paging market has been shrinking.

Since 2002, China's paging industry has been shrinking. After a short period of bleak business, the paging industry has gradually withdrawn from the lives of ordinary people in the city, from the economically developed south to the economically underdeveloped north. In the mid-to-late 1990s, the paging industry in Shenzhen was at its peak. Peak status. In 1997, there were 82 paging companies in Shenzhen, with 1.8 million users. By the end of 2002, there were only 21 paging companies left, with less than 400,000 users. In the same year, 90% of the paging stations in Tianjin had withdrawn from the market.

Mobile phones are the "ultimate killer" of pagers. Not only do the powerful functions of mobile phones make pagers "unable to do anything", but their prices are also becoming cheaper and cheaper. Therefore, many people abandon pagers after buying mobile phones. More importantly, mobile phone short messages have become the "nemesis" of wireless paging to some extent. It is understood that the trend of mobile phones replacing wireless paging has emerged as early as 2000, and this trend has accelerated rapidly by 2002. The situation is getting worse and out of control. By the end of 2002, the total number of telephone users in my country reached more than 400 million, of which the number of mobile phone users exceeded 200 million, and the national telephone penetration rate reached 31 per 100 people. . 99, the mobile phone penetration rate reached 14.95 per 100 people, and the number of Internet users reached 48.29 million. At that time, there were only 19.73 million wireless paging users in the country, a decrease of 16.32 million households.

Motorola, which once became the "biggest" global pager manufacturer, stopped producing pagers a few years ago due to the downturn in the paging industry. The reporter noticed that it is now difficult to find them in large and small communication equipment stores. The disappearance of pagers has been replaced by exquisite mobile phones. A CEO of a paging company in Yinchuan said helplessly that the prices of mobile phones and pagers are getting closer and closer, and pagers will lose their relative advantage, and the paging industry will inevitably decline. It is an unstoppable law that new things replace old things.

Can the paging industry survive the transformation?

In view of the current paging stations being shut down, the paging business is declining day by day. In the current situation of shrinking, people in the paging industry believe that if the paging industry wants to continue to survive and develop, it must explore the transformation to high-level, professional services such as stock information, logistics information, and call centers.

In northwest Gansu. Tianma Communications Co., Ltd. began to explore stock information services as early as 1995. After several years of development, Tianma Paging has now transformed to stock information as its main business and has a certain number of fixed users.

Relevant experts believe that compared with the previous simple "calling to find people" business, the new business is more specialized and requires practitioners to have various professional knowledge such as stocks, logistics, corporate advertising and publicity. These businesses have their advantages. Currently, investors can use stock machines to receive information from the paging station, or they can use mobile phones or computers to browse information on the Internet. There will not be a big difference in service quality, but the paging station only charges a monthly service fee of more than 20 yuan. , Internet access on a mobile phone costs at least 600 yuan. For working-class people, stock machines are naturally the first choice.

There are also many constraints to starting a new business. Call center is a relatively promising new type of business. According to industry insiders, it is a comprehensive information service system established using computer network and telephone communication integration technology (CTI), which allows enterprises to handle all calls in the shortest possible time. There may be many user calls, including user consultation, inquiry, ordering, complaints, etc., to provide good services to enterprise users. By using call center services, enterprises can save a lot of costs, which also requires employees in the paging industry to have higher quality in the future.

Some paging stations that were once large but have now been closed have actually tried to launch new businesses, but most of them ended in failure.

Expert analysis believes that the reasons for the failure are: first, the lack of obvious competitive advantages. Mobile phone information service functions are becoming more and more perfect. All functions that pagers have can also be done by mobile phones; second, the market for new services is still being developed. It takes a certain amount of time for the market to fully mature. During this period of "non-stop", many paging stations do not have the ability to develop the market or even maintain minimum operations.

Some experts believe that with the development of the economy and the change of people's business concepts, call centers and stock information, including some new businesses that may be developed in the future, still have a certain future when the time is ripe. , they may also reopen these businesses.