Worth mentioning for all those that wondered why this didn't take off like the mobile phone network, proper... You could only make calls, not receive them and coverage was limited. I grew up in Manchester and remember seeing the base stations about but hardly anyone used them (10,000 subs was the max accroding to Wikipedia)
Yes you could only use them at hotspots like train stations and shopping malls.
Technically they could receive calls, but because that would only work in range of a hotspot, few operators offered this function. There was too limited radio spectrum to offer service across a wider area (reutilisation of cells not practical).
In some cases the phones had a built-in pager to provide some form of reachability.
I didn't live in the UK in the 90s, but if beepers/pagers were as prevalent there as they were in the States, that's not such a hinderance, and maybe still easier than finding a payphone to return a page?
How prevalent were pagers in your area? I was a college student with one in the late 90s. There was a Mountain Dew promotion that gave you a pager and a year's service for X number of proofs-of-purchase, which was easy to get if you just went to a gas station and asked if you could dig through the boxes, but I didn't know anyone else who had one. Crucial item for certain fields (first responders, healthcare, IT, drug dealers), but for an average person?
I don't miss carrying a pager, but the alphanumeric ones we had when I was a resident physician were pretty cool. Need to send a one-way message? They had a web interface, so you could. One or two months of service on a single AA battery. Worked everywhere. Far more than I can say for smartphones.
I recall having one in the late 90's, just before PAYG phones made their debut and SMS mopped up the market for them.
Easy way for your Mum to tell you to get back for tea, or else! :)
