Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Nextel Communications Inc. leading the way, push-to-talk technology

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 18:02:24 -0500

2/10/2003

With Nextel Communications Inc. leading the way, push-to-talk
technology is on the cusp of widespread interest.

Major North American carriers are bracing to do battle with Nextel,
which has acquired new subscribers in great numbers, principally due
to its Direct Connect service based on PTT technology supplied by
Motorola Inc. In the last quarter alone, Nextel recorded about
half-a-million new subscribers, most of them taken from its competition.

The technology echoes the power of voice as a killer application,
especially as the protocol plans to take advantage of voice over
Internet Protocol, which has grown into the pivot of many
next-generation plans.

While it remains a North American interest for the moment, experts
expect push-to-talk service to generate momentum in Europe and Asia
because of its appeal as an enhanced voice version of short message
service, which has experienced phenomenal success in both regions.

"This is essentially a North American story, although there will be
initial pilots in Asia and Europe," said Bob Plascke, chief financial
officer and executive vice president of marketing at Sonim
Technologies Inc. PTT technology is expected to draw attention at this
month's 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France.

U.S. operators Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS and Alltel Communications
Inc. have expressed intentions to provide the services, while AT&T
Wireless Services Inc., Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and T-Mobile USA Inc.
also are aggressively pursuing it, according to industry sources.

FastMobile recently completed a voice PTT test between Chicago and
London using T-Mobile USA's network, as well as U.K. operators Orange
plc's and Vodafone Group plc's systems. The company used the Nokia
7650 and 3650 handsets with a Symbian operating system.

A FastMobile server, located in suburban Chicago and untethered to any
operator, routed the digitized voice and text conversations across a
GPRS system, according to the company.

L.M. Ericsson, Sonim, Dynamicsoft Inc., Qualcomm Inc., Togabi
Technologies Inc, Comverse Technology Inc., Mobile Tornado and
Winphoria Inc. are getting involved in PTT. They claim to be in talks
and/or trials with major carriers, although most will not reveal with
whom they are talking and when the carriers intend to roll out their
services. Qualcomm said it provided a test solution for Nextel Direct
services.

Much of the interest in developing a PTT solution is that Motorola's
PTT technology has generated about $5 billion of talk minutes billed
to customers last year, even though the solution is not IP-based and
geared to blue-collar workers within a limited geographic range. It
only works on Motorola's narrow range of seven handsets and iDEN networks.

Nextel, according to Sonim's Plascke, did not spend as much on
advertising as other operators but acquired "more subscribers than
three of the largest carriers."

The new solution trends toward open standards with more features than
Nextel's Direct Connect currently provides, including unrestricted
geographic range and person-to-person as well as person-to-group
capabilities.

Plascke said the technology needs to work across every handset and
bearer technology, be integrated at the chipset level, be downloadable
in J2ME or BREW, and be energy efficient.

Push-to-talk services can cut churn, according to Mike Champa, chief
executive officer of Winphoria, which has conducted trials with
undisclosed customers.

Qualcomm's PTT solution was created in response to a request from
Nextel, said Rob Chandhok, vice president for Qualcomm Internet
services. Plans call for the solution, Q-chat, to be used in Nextel's
systems when the carrier packetizes its networks.

"When a Q-Chat application is sent," remarked Chandhok, "it's an IP
packet, not IS-95."

Dynamicsoft said it does not provide an end-to-end solution, but its
system is based on session initiation protocol. SIP establishes,
modifies and terminates conferencing and telephony over IP-based
networks. The company said its system could be either vertical or
standards-compliant, allowing carriers to wrap disparate systems into
one vendor implementation system, said Steve Rostowski, vice president
of marketing at the company.

Ericsson said it plans to create a core platform strategy for all
existing bearer technologies for any carrier, although it would not
mention any operator discussions. "Given the success of MMS in Europe,
Ericsson's vision will not only involve voice but also text, pictures
and other services," said Peter Lancia, director of product and
technical marketing.

FastMobile describes itself as a service provider that works with
carriers, which can conduct instant communication using voice or
picture messaging as a single application.

"Operators can sell it as an add-on or value-added service," said
Harry Eschel, co-founder and vice president of the company.
 http://rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?articleId=41763&a=a&bt=nextel
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