[mibbitier]

A simple nokia from 10 years ago or so will run for a week on a charge. It's only modern phones with massive screens, GPS, etc that eat battery.

[jlgreco]

A week is a far cry from months. Range, reliability, and delivery guarantees are also an issue with phones.

The only real argument against pagers is that it's another thing to carry around, but in that regard modern pagers are a lot better than dumb-cellphones so pagers still have the advantage (because lets face it, people are still going to want their smartphones).

(Well, that and "they are old, and old is lame", which is not really an argument. ;)

[mibbitier]

Outside hospital workers, you'd be hard pressed to find many in the UK that even know what a pager is, let alone someone who has one.