What Is A Pager And Why Hezbollah Still Relies On This Outdated Device

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, 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.

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.

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.

Why Hezbollah members are still using 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.

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.