The interoperability of push to talk solutions is essential for mass-market uptake of such services, which is why Ericsson's own solution, Instant Talk, fully conforms to commonly defined standards.

Focus-group studies by Ericsson (see link below) have shown that for push to talk services to become a reality in the mass market, full interoperability between different handsets and operator networks is a necessity. With this as its goal, the Open Mobile Alliance has set out to define a standard for Push to talk over Cellular (PoC) services, which Ericsson's own solution, Instant Talk, is fully conforming to.

 

Ericsson Instant Talk Marketing Manager Niclas Medman says that the results of Ericsson's survey show there truly is end-user demand for push to talk services. "Push to talk has the potential to grow into a mass-market service," he says. "But in order for it to do so there must be interoperability between different terminals and different networks. And Push to talk over Cellular is the only standard path."

 

Ericsson Instant Talk is already in compliance with the first phase of a PoC specification that a number of different handsets should interoperate with the solution. This opens up possibilities for multiple terminals and feature-rich services to operate on GSM/GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA and CDMA2000 networks, and forms the basis of a sound business case for push to talk solutions. Operators stand to benefit from the additional revenue generated by new users and extra traffic, as well as from interconnection fees. 

The Open Mobile Alliance is expected to finalize the PoC standard in a few months' time. Niclas Medman says that if the OMA timetable is held, solutions complying with the Push to Talk over Cellular standard are expected during 2005, which is also when Ericsson expects the service to really start taking off. "At the moment most operators are in an evaluation phase, and Ericsson provides a solution that already builds on the PoC specifications. This means that the current Ericsson solution will offer simple upgrades towards the OMA standard release," says Medman.

 

He continues: "The PoC standardization builds on the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standard for the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), by adding the specifics on the push to talk application level on top of IMS." Medman adds: "Today Ericsson has contracts with 25 operators worldwide for trials or commercial launches of IMS systems, including a range of services such as, for example, Push to talk over Cellular."

 

Instant Talk is in fact one in a series of standardized IMS-based services from Ericsson that will take operators into the world of all-IP convergence. Through IMS architecture operators will be able to offer their subscribers flexible combinations of voice, text, images, video and games, and allow them to share pictures, video and other media during calls, using a range of terminals and access types. And IMS secures the multi-vendor integration and service interoperability that is critical for success on the mass-market.