Fierce Wireless's PTT position and my reply

Is there much value in competitive PTT offerings?
April 21, 2008
Tags Verizon Wireless subscriber base metropcs Alltel Wireless Mergers and Acquisitions Sprint
Tools
Email
Print
Comment
Contact Author
Is there much value in push-to-talk offerings from operators other than Sprint Nextel?
Verizon Wireless, according to The Wall Street Journal, is planning to launch a new, faster version of its PTT service over EV-DO this summer after offering PTT for nearly five years. The news follows MetroPCS' launch of a PTT service that enables users to connect to other subscribers on other networks if they use a specific MetroPCS PTT phone. And others such AT&T and Alltel have been offering PTT services for some time now.
Ever since Nextel, prior to its merger with Sprint, launched PTT and recorded the industry's best churn and ARPU rates, competitors have been trying to replicate its success. In 2003, the first competitive offerings came on the scene, and they had little impact on Nextel's subscriber base or customer growth as they were technically inferior and could not penetrate the vast number of user groups.
Then in 2006, Sprint Nextel began losing iDEN customers, and competitors still could not achieve much market success with PTT offerings.
Fast forward to 2008, and Sprint Nextel is working on wooing back the many disgruntled iDEN users and launching QChat over EV-DO Rev. A. But the country's largest PTT operator may find a diminished market. PTT simply isn't on the top list of requirements for the enterprise market anymore, says Phil Redman, vice president of research with Gartner Research. There are only certain groups where PTT is important, he says.
That also means a diminished market for competitors too. Of course, carriers like MetroPCS are targeting the consumer and family groups, but the entire dynamic of the industry has changed. PTT was originally used to help keep voice prices down. With unlimited mobile plans on the market and features such as free calling to fellow customers of a particular operator, does PTT really offer much of a significant differentiator?
But what's a really interesting play is the idea of pushing voice and data services. For instance, one QChat initiative Qualcomm has undertaken is Yagatta, which is an advanced version of push to talk that includes simultaneous voice and data sessions. Yagatta would allow PTT to be incorporated with other services such as social networking, user-generated content, chat rooms, video text messaging and more.
Simple PTT is passé now. And Sprint Nextel understands this as it's working to add push-to-x features such as using one button to send email and pictures. With all the talk about how difficult it is for customers to navigate through menus to consume the mobile content they desire, this one-button instantaneous feature should become a powerful tool to generating data revenues. -Lynnette



MY REPLY:

Comments
By AOsgood Posted 4:04pm April 21, 2008
Thank you for the thoughtful editorial. I do, however, want to leave an observation. You quoted Mr Redman("..PTT simply isn't on the top list of requirements for the enterprise market anymore..") speaking about the future of PTT. While I agree that PTT may not have much future in those industries traditionally considered to be White Collar - I also am confident that there is not only a large but still growing market for PTT services in those industries traditionally described as "Blue Collar" (Construction, heavy manufacturing, Public Safety, transportation, services, etc). While I personally seek out and use many of the advanced features available (Audio, Video, Wireless Broadband, etc.), I don't think that the average PTT customer reallyt cares about them - he or she simply wants to be able to push the button and carry a conversation. If you think I am way off base, you need only to look at the LMR or two way radio industry. Many of the radio manufacturors and sales/service operations are thriving BECAUSE no one is offering a viable alternative. One of the features that made NexTel such a great success initially was the fact that you could literally carry on a real time coast to coast 2-way radio conversation without touching the PSTN (at least, without touching the PSTN in a visible way to either user).