SINGAPORE-Singapore, a city-state with the highest concentration of beepers in the world, on Sept. 6 honored its 1 millionth pager user be giving him a 22-karat gold-encased pager and a lifetime free subscription.
Always quick to embrace technological innovations, Singapore introduced paging service in 1973. Today, one out of three people in this Southeast Asian hub of finance and commerce carries a beeper.
Tan Kang Sai, a retiree, became the 1 millionth customer of the monopoly Singapore Telecom PageLink when he registered his pager on Sept. 3, the company said in a statement.
At a ceremony, Singapore Telecom group’s chief executive, Lee Hsien Yang, presented Tan with the gold page, valued at $2,857, and a free subscription.
Paging became common in the 1980s after Singapore Telecom changed all rotary dial telephones to push-button. Unlike some other countries, Singapore does not have operator-assisted paging and can directly feed the numbers or messages in English, Chinese and Malay languages using touchstone phones.
Lee said Singapore Telecom has invested $60 million in the paging network and intends to spend $93 million more in the next five years.
