Nokia 'walkie-talkie' phone to hit Europe
13-11-2003
by Ciaran Buckley

Nokia's push-to-talk enabled 5140 handset could add a new medium to the culture of mobile communications and could add voice minutes to operators' revenues.

Push to talk (PTT) functions like a walkie-talkie built into a mobile phone. Instead of dialling a number to start a conversation with a friend, users just select someone from their buddy list, push a button on the handset and speak, in order for their voice to be instantly heard by the recipient. Like a walkie-talkie, push-to-talk is uni-directional, so callers cannot talk over each other and must wait for their turn to speak.

"The typical user will be similar to the type of person who uses SMS, with the difference that SMS is less intrusive," said Chris Haddock, director of European marketing at Ubiquity Software, a company that develops software for PTT. "I imagine it might be used by friends meeting at a night club so that they can find each other."

US-based Nextel already offers its customers handsets that feature its "Direct Connect" walkie-talkie service. The only European company offering PTT is a company called fastmobile, which offers PTT across all UK operators and in all countries that have GPRS-enabled networks for Nokia 7650 and 3650 handsets.

But because the Nokia 5410 is compatible with European GSM frequencies and will work across the existing GPRS networks, it opens the possibility of a broad adoption of the technology in Europe.

One barrier to its adoption will be the initial delay in connecting to a GPRS network, which dampens the immediacy of a walkie-talkie service. But once the first connection has been made, subsequent back-and-forth messages are instantaneous.

In a business context Haddock sees it as a potential replacement technology for walkie-talkies, particularly in large sites where distance may be a limiting factor for walkie-talkies.

Although the PTT service is expected to run across GPRS, which is currently billed by file size rather than based on the number and duration of calls, Haddock expects that PTT will be billed in the same manner as SMS calls.

"At the end of the day, GPRS is the bearer, but PTT is the service," said Haddock. "The technology behind the bearer is meaningless to the consumer, who are only interested in the usefulness of the service and the amount they'll have to pay for it."

Haddock also said that it was difficult to estimate the ultimate size of the PTT market because it will be bundled with voice minutes, but he believed that it would have a "noticeable effect" upon voice minute traffic.

The 5140 is to be available from the second quarter of 2004 and also includes a flashlight, radio, digital compass and a built-in VGA camera.