Still buzzing: the people using pagers in 2017

Britain will soon be down to just one paging provider, but for the nation's paramedics, lifeboat crews and birdwatchers the devices remain essential kit

In the 1990s, it was cool to have a pager. When the beep sounded in your bag or on your belt, it delivered one message to you and another to those nearby: that you were so rich or important that people needed to contact you all the time. Now we're all rich and important, thanks to mobile phones, but a few of us still use pagers. On Tuesday, it was announced that Vodafone, one of the last two paging providers, had agreed to sell its business to Capita, the other one. Subject to the regulators' approval, this means about 1,000 customers will be switching over, after which there will be one provider left to rule all of Britain's pager users.

But who are these people exactly? Put simply, they are anyone who needs the one remaining technical advantage that pagers have: slightly more reliability. Where mobile phone networks can be patchy, or slow, or overloaded, the separate paging network offers a modest improvement in reception and reach, especially in rural areas. Compared with modern smartphones, pager batteries also last much longer.