Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Walkie-Talkie Coast To Coast Inside Nextel's new Direct Connect service.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 12:49:32 -0400

Walkie-Talkie Coast To Coast  Inside Nextel's new Direct Connect service.
BY REBECCA DAY
Lead photos by Getty Images

A gigantic 400,000-ft.-high antenna that gets serviced by astronauts?
"Antennalopes" that continually migrate across the United States?  Carrier pigeons
constantly in the air with tiny antennas strapped to their legs? They make great
commercials but, no, that's not how they do it.

So how did Nextel become the first cellular provider to offer coast-to-coast
coverage of walkie-talkie service? How do you push a button in New York and
immediately connect to a phone in San Francisco? New technology. Nextel's
developments clear the way for push-to-talk to expand beyond its enterprise roots
to a service that national companies, first-responder emergency agencies and even
families are likely to adopt.

Until now, push-to-talk had been available only within limited geographic regions.
Nextel commercials showing actor Dennis Franz discussing produce with his wife
suggested she was at home while he was shopping at the local bodega. With
nationwide access, Franz could be on the set of "NYPD Blue" in Manhattan talking
to his better half as she attends the Kumquat Festival in Florida.

The Nextel Nationwide Direct Connect service is based on Motorola's Integrated
Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN), which was introduced in 1994 primarily as a way
for businesses to communicate quickly without having to make costly individual
calls. The phones have been used extensively by small businesses, allowing service
technicians to keep in touch with the home office, and construction workers to
keep tabs on each other at a job site.

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Nextel supplied the FBI, police,
fire and Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel with phones to help manage the
heightened security. "The war room and the feet on the street had Nextel phones,"
says Drew Caplan, Vice President of Network Services for Nextel.

Although police forces have proprietary communications systems, Nextel phones are
becoming increasingly popular as a second radio, according to Caplan. "When
there's a disaster and you have four or five counties and agencies all coming
together--police, fire and EMS--they all want to talk to one another," he says.
"Under Direct Connect they can."

Nextel's iDEN phones are manufactured by Motorola, and can be used either as a
traditional cellular phone or in walkie-talkie mode. In Direct Connect mode, you
select a caller in your address book and then press the Direct Connect button,
which is on the upper lefthand side of the phone.  Protocol suggests that you
"chirp" the person you're calling with a little beep to find out if it's a good
time to chat. If the person responds, then you continue.  Regular cellphone calls
go through Nextel's cellular network and then ring as a standard voice call.

A Direct Connect call in walkie-talkie mode initiates very quickly compared with a
cellular call, which can experience a 5- to 10-second setup time for a call to
connect. "That's perfectly acceptable because the typical cellular call is 2
minutes," says Caplan. "But if you're waiting 5 to 10 seconds to set up something
that's a 30-second communication, it loses its appeal."

The iDEN network was built from the ground up to support instant delivery of the
data stream from phone to phone. That's achieved by a frequent verification from
phone to network. "It has to do with how often the phone has to check back with
the network," Caplan says.

The iDEN network converts voice signals into "packetized" data for much faster
transmission. "All of our towers have dedicated data connections back to our
network," Caplan says. "We track all the phones at a very granular level so that
our network knows where your phone is at a more local level than typical cellular
networks."

With Nationwide Direct Connect, your local network knows when your phone is out of
its local network and which network it is located in instead. It communicates with
a Dispatch Application Processor (DAP), which communicates with the caller's
network and sets up the call. The DAP's responsibilities are call setup and smart
tracking of handsets.

The first 3-number group in a Direct Connect call number is similar to an area
code. The second group, the fleet number, is like an exchange in a landline call.
The last group of digits is the member number. Each group is separated by an
asterisk (which the caller keys in along with the numbers).  The numbers are
assigned to users by Nextel. You can store the numbers in your address book with
your cellphone and landline numbers. Highlight the contact and press the Direct
Connect button, and the phone dials the appropriate number.

Unlike a typical voice conversation, push-to-talk technology is what is called
half-duplex communication, meaning that one person has to finish speaking and
release the button on his phone before the other person can speak. The difference
between the two voice-call types is analogous to that between instant messaging
and e-mailing via computer. When you send an instant message, it's usually
short--typically a question or answer. If you want to include more detail or an
attachment, you send an e-mail. Caplan says 94 percent of Nextel subscribers use
Direct Connect on a regular basis.

Nextel's palette of Motorola Direct Connect phones all double as cellphones and
all are capable of Nationwide Direct Connect. The models range from a
cost-friendly $40 for the no-frills i30sx to $300 for the state-of-the-art i95cl
flip phone with a color screen, voice recorder, Java technology, downloadable ring
tones and voice-activated dialing.  The i2000plus ($125) is a world phone that
incorporates GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) technology, which means
you can use it in Europe, Asia and elsewhere (although not Japan, which has its
own network) with the addition of a smart chip. The i58sr ($150) is the brawny one
of the bunch, with a rubber grip and rubber/plastic door to protect the battery
compartment. The embedded GPS sensor gives location information and will be
compatible with future location-based cellular services.

Nextel's nod to the PDA world is the $450 BlackBerry 6510, a keyboard-equipped
handheld that wears many hats: organizer, cellphone, walkie-talkie, as well as a
Web-browser, e-mail and text-messaging device.

Nextel's service plans have traditionally been more expensive than those of other
cellular providers, but businesses have been willing to absorb the higher cost for
the quick access that Direct Connect service delivers. Users pay a premium for the
nationwide service, too. At press time, Nextel offered only one call package:
unlimited local and nationwide service for both cellular and Direct Connect calls
that runs subscribers $200 a month.

Another useful service is Group Connect. With it, a foreman on a job site, for
example, could dial in five or 10 employees to deliver a unified message.  Group
Connect is not currently available on the nationwide plan but could be in the
future, Caplan says.

Nextel isn't the only push-to-talk provider, although it's by far the largest with
11 million subscribers.  Sprint says it plans to roll out a nationwide
push-to-talk service by the end of 2003, although details about service plans and
phones weren't available at press time.

Caplan isn't optimistic about compatibility among the competing services.
"Eventually it will depend on what our customers are asking for and if nationwide
is something we want to open up [with other companies]," he says. "We know with
our service what we're giving our customers and what the experience is going to be
like." If working with other providers results in a subpar experience, Caplan
says, further research will be required. "We engineered the entire network to
deliver that reliable instancy," he says. "That for us is mission critical."

http://popularmechanics.com/technology/telecom/2003/10/walkie_talkies/print.phtml

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