Push to Talk service????

scudster

Are service providers ever gonna set up this service?

Andy-Pandy

scudster wrote:

Are service providers ever gonna set up this service?

nope, no network in europe has it. no need.

Tom Dunne

Andy-Pandy wrote:

no need.

Wash your mouth out. And go stand in the corner.

PTT has many uses and is very common in the US. I think it would be great if they introduced it here.

bennyx_o

The company mobile phones given out in work have PTT. Be real handy if we could use it, instead of having to ring people. How does it work in the US, is it a monthly subscription or what?

Owen

There is in fact a need for PTT. I remember about 10 years ago when we were selling the first GSM phones, some Motorolas and Nokias could only receive texts, only store 8 texts, and had 1 line displays. Sure no one would ever want text messaging when a call was so much more effective.

I've seen PTT in use in the States, and I'm impressed. You can have a phone call for a fraction of the cost. Plus, because you're transmitting the call a chunk at a time, there is a larger proportion of bandwidth free for actual calls, easing the problem of dropped calls, 'network busy' errors, etc.

Vodafone in New Zealand are trialling it, and apparently, it's a huge sucess. Like Video Calling, it'll take a while before people have the handsets that can cope with it. But it will happen, and we'll all get very used to it indeed.

Funkstard

When I was in exchange in America everyone used it. I think it was free or nearly so too, so much cheaper than ringing and easier/faster than texting.

I'm sure if it was brought in here the networks would charge way too much for it and no one would use it. Oh well.

elderlemon

PTT in the US is based on radio hardware. Basically the handset has a "walkie talkie" (for want of a better description) built in to it. PPT on GMS networks is all digital.

I think PTT in the US took off simply because there was either no text message support from the operators or the costs (in the US most users have to pay to RECEIVE a text message) were too high.

With text messaging so big here I have my doubts as to how successful it will be.

irishproduce

It wont be introduced for a long time, if ever

Funkstard

elderlemon wrote:

PTT in the US is based on radio hardware. Basically the handset has a "walkie talkie" (for want of a better description) built in to it. PPT on GMS networks is all digital.

I think PTT in the US took off simply because there was either no text message support from the operators or the costs (in the US most users have to pay to RECEIVE a text message) were too high.

With text messaging so big here I have my doubts as to how successful it will be.

Oh is it different over here? I thought it was just the same walkie-talkie thing

elderlemon

Been a while since I was involved in GSM development but the original ptt for GSM was to use GPRS and SMS as the carrier. Its basically a connectionless VOIP (uses SIP and RTP). The phone takes the analog voice signal, digitizes it, encodes and sends over the gprs network just like any other packet.

The advantages are that there is no limit on distance, no additional batttery draining h/w in the handset and unlike the original PPT service in the US, can be used across different operators ( in the US PTT meant that everyone had to be on the same operator or it wouldn't work).

The disadvantage is that you must have gprs coverage or it can't be used.

telecomsman

Yeah, you have it spot on. Its basically service that utilises a networks packet-switched backbone. Obvsiously quite a large amount of CAPEX is required for the "Presence Servers" and other functions that make up its core.

To be honest, Ive discussed this many times both on this board and in meetings....Im not going to bore you with facts and figures but the issue with PTT isnt so much a technology one (as the GSM infrastructure is more or less in place), but one of whether subscriber adoption of the service would justify its existence. To look at it from a commercial point of view, the mobile markets in the US and Europe differ greatly in respect of subcriber usage of services. While Europe has seen an explosion in SMS over the last decade, SMS in the US hasnt been adopted as a "core service" by most. This boils down to the idea that Europe=SMS heavy and US=Voice heavy, on the back of this PTT was bound to be a winner. So at the moment what we have is all the GSM (2.5 and 3G) operators in Europe, waiting and watching each other to see if any of the others will launch PTT in their market and ultimately what the takeup will be. While most operators have trialled the service, to my knowledge only a handful have actually put detailed business plans together for board approval.

Im not saying that PTT wont be launched outside the US, as it may well be, nor am I saying that it wont be a success.....but it will be interesting to see what the adoption of the service will be like if a company like Vodafone or Telefonica decide to take that jump.

Sleipnir

ned78 wrote:

You can have a phone call for a fraction of the cost.

Ahhhhhh...and the mobile operators aren't pushing it for what reason?

darraghrogan

Is there anyhting stopping a third party hosting a PTT server?

I wouldn't mind trying it out - I'm sure it would run on P3 hardware....

Darragh