Ok, seeing that I've hooked up hundreds of paging systems in my lifetime, I want to vent a bit:
I find a telephone paging system to be something of a modern marvel, not an outdated technology. Perhaps its a technology that never caught on in Europe, but it's a part of the North American lifestyle whether you like it or not.
It's hard for me to believe that paging systems are not common in Europe. Maybe they aren't popular in small offices and some retail stores in Europe...but saying that they aren't anywhere is hard for me to believe.
What about train stations? Do you give all of the passengers DECT phones to carry around so they can hear when there is a problem in the station or a gate change?
What about hospitals? In an Emergency or Code Blue calls, are you saying the hospitals in Europe do not use paging systems? Along with physical Vocera and Ascom DECT phones/pagers, hospitals in the states rely on paging systems for fast instantaneous announcements in an emergency.
Are there no paging systems at airports in Europe? I believe I heard one at the Dublin airport when I was visiting there.
Europe does tend to like their coffee a different way than we do in the USA, so its your cup of tea and I respect you Tlpeter and my friends in Europe. But paging is definitely not "old fashioned."
Also the other telecom systems out there such as Toshiba, Shoretel, Mitel, Allworx, Asterisk, Panasonic, LG Ericsson, and many others have dedicated page ports that make hooking up paging systems right on the PBX or Key System.
I hardly think Avaya said "hey paging is an old fashioned (steam train engine, rotary dial) technology" when they didn't offer a page port. They probably figured there were easier ways to implement it than providing a page port or they wanted to spend money on better features.
"Keep the Peace, Use RLS"