At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded in Lebanon after thousands of wireless devices used by Hezbollah members exploded on Tuesday. A senior Lebanese security source claimed that Israel's Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 Taiwan-made pagers or "beepers" ordered by the Iran-backed group months before the blasts.
What are pagers?
A pager or 'beeper' is a small, portable communication device that receives short messages, typically numeric or alphanumeric, over a radio frequency signal. Pagers were widely used before cell phones became popular. It was a crucial communication tool, especially for professionals like doctors, journalists, technicians, and managers. It allowed them to receive important messages and sound alerts, even in remote areas.
How do pagers work?
The operation of a pager was straightforward yet efficient. When a message was sent via radio waves, the device would alert the user with a distinct beep. This prompt would then require the user to locate a nearby public or landline phone to respond to the message.
The first pager was patented in the US in 1949 by inventor Alfred Gross. The term "pager" was officially registered in 1959 by Motorola.
Motorola's first pager, the Pageboy 1 created in 1964, allowed an audible alert to be sent by telephone before the technology was perfected and allowed, from the 80s, to send written messages
As technology progressed, pagers underwent significant improvements. The newer models were equipped with a small screen, enabling them to display short messages directly on the device.
61 million pagers were in circulation worldwide in 1994, says an AFP report quoting US-based pager manufacturer Spok.
However, by the 1990s, mobile phones started to replace these little devices. The convenience of mobile phones quickly diminished the demand for pagers, and by the late 1990s, beepers had mostly vanished from public use.
Pagers continue to be used in some sectors, like hospitals, especially in the US.
Why Hezbollah members still use pagers
The recent cyberattack targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah revealed that pagers, which many assumed had become obsolete, were still in use by the group.
The pagers were used by Hezbollah fighters as a low-tech means of communication to evade Israeli location-tracking. Pagers use their own frequency and are therefore considered more reliable as they bypass mobile telephone networks that can be impacted by frequent interruptions, connection issues or can be intercepted.
According to reports, Israel's Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday's detonations.
The Lebanese security source told Reuters said the pagers were from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, but the company said in a statement it did not manufacture the devices. It said they were made by a company called BAC which has a licence to use its brand, but gave no more details.
The senior Lebanese security source said the group had ordered 5,000 beepers from Gold Apollo, which several sources say were brought into the country earlier this year.