Push-To-Talk Becomes Hot Buttom For Data
Mar 26, 2003 (Wireless Data News/PBI Media via COMTEX) -- For all the expectations that high-speed, revenue-growing data services would push wireless operators into third-generation systems, the potential is emerging for simple push-to-talk (PTT) applications to prompt operators to migrate to the Internet-protocol world of 3G service.
The development of PTT capability for wireless interfaces other than Motorola's [NYSE: MOT] proprietary iDEN (integrated digital enhanced network) technology could become a key driver for CDMA operators to migrate their networks to CDMA2000 1X, EV-DO and EV-DV, and for GSM companies to move to GPRS, EDGE and W-CDMA. While Nextel Communications [Nasdaq: NXTL] and several other companies primarily in North America have made the two-way radio function the jewel of their iDEN service features, PTT also is a feature of TETRA (terrestrial trunked radio) systems used primarily in Europe. This year, Nextel is adding more luster to its Direct Connect PTT service by giving it nationwide reach.
Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS [NYSE: PCS] and AT&T Wireless Services [NYSE: AWE] are among the carriers that have announced they either will offer PTT service or will conduct PTT trials this year. Before wireless operators outside the iDEN space--and their customers--make commercial PTT plans, some caution about technology must be considered.
Silicon Valley startup Sonim Technologies is bullish when describing how PTT, particularly its offering, will affect next-generation GSM networks (GPRS, EDGE and W-CDMA). Its core network technology, according to Rahul Khanna, its senior marketing director, opens the door to multiple voice-over-IP possibilities, starting with PTT.
"This is the Trojan horse to get the operators into 3G," Khanna tells Wireless Data News. In addition to PTT, San Mateo, Calif.-based Sonim's offering enables direct messaging to numbers on users' contact lists, and they add presence intelligence to other services offered on a network.
"Fear, greed and envy" will prompt GSM carriers and infrastructure vendors to integrate PTT technology, he adds: fear that their competitors will beat them to it, greed over the revenue possibilities and envy for competitors already using it.
Sonim's standards-based offering includes client and server software with call set-up and header compression based on wireless-optimized session initiation protocol (SIP) along with low-rate adaptive, multi-rate analog-to- digital converter for voice transport bundled by wireless real-time protocol and with half-duplex signal direction.
Chip vendors including Intel [Nasdaq: INTC] and Texas Instruments [NYSE: TXN] have integrated Sonim's software into digital signal processors for handsets, though no phone vendors have produced models with the chips. Three network operators are testing its server software, Khanna says.
Starent Networks isn't entering the wireless infrastructure market as a PTT player, but the Tewksbury, Mass., company expects the capability to become a primary driver for sales of its IP media gateway platforms for next-generation CDMA and GSM networks. Starent adds a card to its platforms to enable PTT, but doesn't require software changes in the phones used by subscribers on networks using its platforms.
Network operators could "do it right now," says Nick Lopez, Starent's director business development.
Starent is one of three vendors approved by Chinese telecom technology regulators to provide media gateways for CDMA2000 EV-DO deployments in the country. That approval enabled Starent to land a contract to supply China Unicom [NYSE: CHU] with media gateways for its planned EV-DO footprint in eight provinces.
It also has expanded its partnership with Samsung to provide the South Korean company with media gateways for its next-generation GSM (GPRS gateway service nodes) as well as CDMA (packet data serving nodes) projects.
Those steps create momentum for Starent, but Lopez tells Wireless Data News that enabling PTT should particularly enhance the company's image with wireless operators. "They really see it as a value-add," he says.
Nextel Still Rules
While these technology developers point to their rapid progress and their expectations for commercial launches before the end of the year, industry observers describe problems with their technologies and say PTT service from any carrier outside the iDEN and TETRA worlds is unlikely in 2003.
"Near-term [plans] have been exaggerated as competitive push-to-talk services will clearly have their own hurdles to overcome," observes Bill Densmore, U.S. wireless market analyst for Fitch Ratings.
Operators with non-iDEN networks, however, probably won't see the value of PTT soon. They're more likely to see problems with it, Fitch's Densmore predicts. Plus, once U.S. CDMA and GSM operators give PTT technology passing grades, they'll still face an uphill climb to take away Nextel's prized customer base -- business users. "There is a very real implementation and infrastructure hurdle," Densmore adds. The problems are too large "to really sustain a really strong biz model in the near-term."
Nextel operates "from a firmly entrenched position" in the PTT arena, so newcomers to the service will have to play catch-up, Densmore says. Nextel's consumer subscribers - between 20 percent and 25 percent of its 10 million-plus total -- will be most susceptible to moving to other carriers offering PTT. But Nextel and other U.S. commercial operations offering PTT won't soon be threatened by competing offers.
"Fitch believes competitive offerings will have negligible affects on Nextel in 2003, while possibly gaining some traction and dampening [Nextel's] net subscriber growth in 2004," Densmore says.
>>Bill Densmore, bill.densmore@fitchratings.com; Rahul Khanna, rahul@sonimtech.com; Nick Lopez, nlopez@starentnetworks.com.
Obstacles To Pushing And Talking On CDMA
* Call set-up latencies: iDEN, sub 1 second; CDMA, 5 seconds
* No inter-carrier interoperability: Same problem limited U.S. SMS growth
* Handset functionality: How many buttons will users push to talk?
* Large-scale deployments: Technology adequate for single markets, so far
PTT Pushes Nextel
* Immediate connections: Call set-up much faster than cellular/PCS connections
* Time saver: Most PTT sessions fewer than 30 seconds; cellular or PCS calls average 2.5 minutes
* Efficient group communication: Reach user group at push of a button instead of through multiple 10-digit dialing
More PTT Players
* Comverse-Mobile Tornado collaboration: Client and server software package for GPRS and W-CDMA networks with interoperability to other networks, including iDEN, and with presence capabilities.
* Winphoria: Global Instant Rendezvous server software requires third- party client software.
* Qualcomm: Qchat product available this year; pact with Nextel allowed development of Qchat for next-generation CDMA operators, but limits market to outside North America for two years.
* Nokia: Modified its TETRA infrastructure to work for GPRS.
* Togabi: Client-server platform is Samsung's choice to PTT-enable its CDMA network projects.
[Copyright 2003 PBI Media, LLC. All rights reserved.]
Wireless Data News, Vol. 11, No. 6 [Copyright 2003 PBI Media, LLC. All rights reserved.]Copyright 2003 PBI Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
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