Sprint PCS Re-Attacks PTT Market
Since Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS launched Push To Talk services late last year, there has been very little noise from either about how those services are being adopted in the market. Verizon offered an early stat that it had picked up 100,000 users in the first weeks, but then fell silent. The silence of both led to speculation that the PTT services may have dangerously loaded the networks, such that the carriers stopped their marketing efforts. Regardless of the speculation, it appeared clear that Nextel’s PTT dominance was not in jeopardy. Now, Sprint PCS has broken the silence, and has revealed that SPCS currently has 275,000 PTT subscribers, but is significantly lowering the price of PTT service to attract more. The stand-alone fee for PTT has been reduced to $10/mo from $15, and the cheapest PTT phone is now the new Sanyo RL-4920 retailing for a discounted $70. SPCS is also offering a promotion where the first two months of PTT and 1xRTT Vision services are offered free. Seems they are, once again, aggressively addressing the PTT market.
