Sprint PCS Sees "Push to Talk" for Work, Family

Mon, Mar 17th 2003 2:14pm — Prash Agarwal

After Wi-Fi the second most popular topic for carriers to discuss is "push to talk" (PTT). Nextel is the leader in this space with it's DirectConnect feature. PTT is credited as one of the main reasons that Nextel has been able to draw business users and maintain a relatively high ARPU of $70 per month. It remains to be be seen if other carriers can achieve similar success with PTT. Today at CTIA SprintPCS continued to feed the PTT hype machine with its view that their soon to launch PTT service will appeal to both businesses and families. To us that statement actually reads as a bit of a warning. They seem to be saying, don't expect us to take on Nextel with our PTT feature, our service will have more of a consumer spin. Sounds like they are realizing that PTT is hard to do and that a bolt-on solution can't replicate DirectConnect exactly. Hmm, I think we recently read a similar warning elsewhere.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team