Subject: [NEXTEL-1] The end user: 'Push to talk' on tap

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 13:47:18 -0500

The end user: 'Push to talk' on tap
Victoria Shannon International Herald Tribune
Monday, December 22, 2003

Cellphones poised to be more versatile

PARIS The cellphone companies are getting nearly as good as the personal
computer companies in making the product you buy today seem old, outdated and
unwantable by tomorrow. No color screen? You must be using yesterday's phone. No
built-in camera? Get with it. Can't customize your ring tone for different
callers? You're just so 90's.

Today, the phone folks are already working on what they hope is next year's
must-have new feature: push-to-talk, or PTT. Nokia and Siemens have said they
intend to put PTT into every phone they make by the end of next year. Motorola
is heavily invested in PTT technology, and Sanyo is getting ready to release its
second PTT handset early in the year.

As simple a concept as those three words sound, push-to-talk is more than meets
the eye. Yes, you do actually push a button on the side of a mobile phone and
talk into the phone, which leads people to describe PTT as being like a
walkie-talkie. But PTT has some distinguishing characteristics, making it more
like a way to deliver today's very popular cellphone text messages - but by
voice.

In general, its advocates say, PTT is designed for brief and immediate voice
exchanges with people you call frequently.
PTT phones use the same technology that e-mail-by-phone does, by breaking up
voice calls into bits and bytes and reassembling them instantaneously at the
receiving end. So it's potentially a lot cheaper than making a regular voice
connection. Also, you can talk to a group of people simultaneously - as many as
25 - and be charged for a single connection.
You can also use PTT like instant messaging on computers: Your phone screen can
show a list of contacts and indicate who is available to get a PTT call. Because
it's a packet-network-based service (the bits and bytes part), the technologists
can design lots of similar customized software and services, like routing
specific calls to voice mail or another phone, for example.
PTT has been used for the past decade by a single wireless company, Nextel of
the United States. It made fans of small businesses with mobile work forces,
like building contractors and sales agents, and the feature gave Nextel a
successful way to differentiate its services from its rivals. Nextel users of
PTT are apparently devoted to the feature.

A few months ago, both Verizon Wireless and Sprint started offering PTT in their
American markets as well. With the advent of such competition - which is
expected in Europe in 2004 - companies like Motorola, which pioneered Nextel's
technology and which built the world's first walkie-talkie, are talking about
PTT for consumers.

"There's been a groundswell over the past six months," said Charlie Henderson,
European director of a PTT Motorola business development group, in a recent
interview. He said the company is in "detailed conversations" with a number of
European wireless carriers to offer the service. It is already in use or being
tried in Finland and Jordan.

For cellphone carriers, it's a cheaper, more efficient and therefore potentially
lucrative way to move voice over the network, using about 50 percent of the
radio resources of regular voice calls, trade magazines report. The experts
expect such a feature to also help them reduce customer turnover.

The phones themselves come with a loudspeaker (like the typical hands-free
speaker, but louder) as well as the push button for the connection. It's a lot
cheaper to imbed a phone with PTT than to put in a camera - though they aren't
priced that way yet - and the subscription cost now ranges from about $10 to $20
a month.

Nokia's 5410 PTT camera phone is a sporty type (with digital compass) due for
the U.S. market next year. Nokia plans to offer GSM phones with PTT next year,
and PTT phones for 3G networks in 2005.

"Light industrial applications are the heart and soul of push-to-talk,"
Henderson said. "Educating consumers is going to take some time."
I would have to agree. I haven't tried PTT myself, but I can imagine only one
rather limited use in my life, as there is one person with whom I am in touch
with for brief exchanges numerous times a day. I'm mindful, though, that I
didn't expect to use text messages as much as I actually do.

European work forces may well find PTT indispensable. Still, I will need actual
end-user testimonials to know if this is really a consumer business.

With several carriers and several manufacturers plunging into the business,
price wars - or, at least, price pressure - are inevitable, so perhaps it will
be cheap enough to experiment with, as text messaging was. Perhaps the Motorola
marketers are right when they talk about PTT as next year's stocking stuffer.

http://www.iht.com/articles/122362.htm

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