Push-To-Talk for GPRS
Nextel has been able to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack with its iDen-based push-to-talk feature. It’s helped Nextel go after business users – and with their support of youth oriented MVNO Boost Mobile, we’ll see if the kids like it. But their days of push-to-talk exclusivity might be numbered. Sprint and Qualcomm are already working on a similar feature for CDMA and now start-up Sonim has a solution for GSM/GPRS networks. Their system goes beyond the Nextel offering by allowing real-time connections as well as store-and-forward. In Europe they are marketing the latter as “voice-originated SMS.” I think this might be a problem, because Euro carriers are betting big on MMS and that should allow you to record and send voice messages directly to other MMS handsets.
Filed Under: 2.5g
