Push-To-Talk Overhyped? What A Concept

It seems that someone has finally realized that Nextel's success, isn't simply because of push-to-talk. For the past few years, other carriers have been drooling over Nextel's ARPU numbers, and the only noticeable difference they've seen was that Nextel offered PTT on their phones. That explained the big time rush by other carriers to figure out ways to offer PTT themselves, in the mistaken belief that it would give them higher ARPUs too. However, now, some in the industry are admitting that perhaps customer segmentation and good marketing is what really explains Nextel's higher ARPUs. Or, as Techdirt said in May 2003: "...it takes a lot more than PTT to dominate the enterprise segment as Nextel does. Nextel has industry vertical sales teams with razor sharp focus to the point of employing a "plumbing expert" to help develop solutions for that vertical." They've always focused on the business sector. The article doesn't even bother to get into the point that we've made before: as the market gets saturated with PTT offerings, any ARPU benefit (if it exists) will get squeezed from the $15-$20 of today something in the 'fistful of dollars' range.

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