Subject: [NEXTEL-1] PTT to take Europe by storm?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:48:23 -0500

PTT to take Europe by storm?
Mobile, posted 26/09/2003 21:53:55 NZ,

Beginning in October, fastchat will be available to consumers in the United
Kingdom through Wizcom's retail stores, Phones4U. The service will initially be
sold on Symbian OS compatible phones, with plans to dramatically increase the
number of handsets in time for the Christmas sales boom.

fastchat combines a unique private walkie-talkie style instant voice messaging
feature with multimedia messaging capabilities (including picture, video, email
and text) into one application that allows subscribers to chat with friends
across mobile carriers, handset models and also to PCs globally.

The software is available for Symbian based mobile phones, including the Sony
Ericsson P800 and the Nokia 3650.

BBC posted an article about this technology, saying that over 62 billion
messages were sent in US last year (according to Nextel, the first to offer this
service).

The fastchat is actually a software installed on a smartphone that looks pretty
much like other IM (ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger). Users create a buddy list, and
at any time can send a short recorded voice message to friends. Friends will
receive it and are able to reply. The interesting thing is that the "dialog" can
be initiated via SMS, the reply comes with the voice message, and another reply
with a video recording (if the mobile phone is capable).

The GPRS network is used to transport the messages - I'm not sure it's cheaper
than SMS, with the current cost structure, but mobile operators are more than
happy to push this.

The BBC article says "system(s) use the "always-on", low cost data network
GPRS". GPRS is not low cost. Data is actually very expensive these days. And
it's not always-on - limitations in current handsets do not allow concurrent
voice and data connections. This means that if a real voice call comes in, data
connection is terminated. The handset is connected to the data layer, but not
the applications. Of course, the normal user on the street will not know about
this.

The article goes on to saying "average user could expect to pay about £7.00 per
month". It obviously does not include the GPRS cost.

In reality SMS is one of the most expensive forms of data transmission anyway -
160 bytes for NZ$0.20 (US$0.14). Multiply this to get a figure for megabytes and
you'll see that one megabyte of information via SMS is worth NZ$1310!

Statistics show that SMS users in UK alone send an average of 55 million SMS
daily, to a total of 1.65 billion every month.

One great market for this though is dispatch. Taxi drivers and couriers would
receive instructions via voice (short messages), and addresses confirmation via
text.

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=1517

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From: motfanatic <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 02:24:04 -0000

that "take Europe by storm" bit begs the question why the Europian
standard for integrated phone and PTT operation (TETRA) was not
successful in landing a commercial customer base.

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 22:18:53 -0500

Because PTT is slower than an interconnect call overall. A Duplex interconnect
call takes 1/3 the time as a half duplex Dispatch call to get your message
through. Add up those Push-To-Talk-Release-To-Listen Intervals. They add up!

 Europeans are one of the most wireless savvy people. Americans are falling for
the PTT hype hook-line-and sinker. PTT is for Public Safety and Industry.

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