BEIJING has seen a surge in the use of telephone pagers, with the number of registered subscribers doubling in the first half of the year to about 300,000.
In China as a whole, there are now more than 2.2 million pager users in 1,075 towns and cities across the country, according to the Xinhua news agency.
The massive increase in the use of pagers, analysts said, reflected both the rapid growth of the private economy and the failure of local telephone networks to keep up with that growth.
''Private entrepreneurs need to have access to good communications, but it can take a year to get a phone installed at home, and portable phones are still too expensive for most people,'' a Western business analyst in Beijing said.
Pagers, which cost between 300 yuan and 1,200 yuan (about HK$400 to $1,600 at the official rate) a year, had therefore found a ready market, he added.
There are already 72 pager services available in Beijing, offering everything from simple messaging, to weather and traffic reports and information on the stock market.