I can't imagine how much work it took to trap all those pagers and not have have someone note they were missing in transit and get suspicious. Most people would be worried about data collection not a bomb anyway. How long did they sit on it waiting for them to be distributed before they activated them?
Kind of seems like a waste for retribution of an assignation attempt as some claim. Seems to me that would have been a card to play in a military invasion, cripple coms as you move on them.
If you wrote this in a script people would laugh it off as being unbelievable.
However, if this was a hack that somehow caused the battery to heat and explode as some claim, could have huge potential to change the way things are done world wide.
*Either way I'm moving my Chinese made phone away from the family jewels as I read this. Might start carrying it in a kevlar bag*