Pager services end in Japan after 50 years

Japan's sole pager provider ended its services Tuesday, with the device, first introduced in the country half a century ago, made redundant by mobile phones.Tokyo Telemessage Inc. shut down radio signals for its services from around midnight Monday through Tuesday.[Courtesy of Tokyo Telemessage]In recent years, the device had been favored mainly by those working in hospitals, where cell phone use was once discouraged because of concerns over the effect of electromagnetic waves on medical devices and where cell phone reception can sometimes be poor.Beeper services in Japan began in 1968 with…READ FULL ARTICLE