For me the advantage of the pager, is that it is loud, much louder than a mobile phone and easy to hear outdoors in traffic. I have found though an iPad is equally loud, if not louder but is a lot bigger and less robust. For my use if someone can come up with a way of making a mobile phone alert to the same volume, I'd move to that as in any case I have to acknowledge the page on an app and the monthly service fee on the pager is four times what I pay for my mobile service.