Philips type ESC ‘Semafoon’ Pager (1962)

In 1963, after about two years of administrative preparation, a lot of telexing, white papering and contract tendering, the Dutch PTT officially launched its nationwide personal pager service called ‘semafoon’ (semaphone). Philips Telecommunications Industry (PTI) were contracted to supply portable pagers for message signalling to, what was expected at the time, no more than 10,000 individual subscribers.