Ptt

I remember wondering that when I got my 6233.

I doubt it ever will. The networks cover it up (orange for example remove it in their specific firmware) because it is a revenue loser for them.
Lets say you are in convoy travelling somewhere, what do you do to communicate with your mates at the moment? Call them. Same goes for a busy pub/club or whatever. If you had PTT you'd use that and that means fewer calls for the network and thus, lost revenue.
For the moment at least, most people know nothing about PTT and I think the networks are doing a fair job of keeping it that way. Until hiding it effects peoples view of their network, it'll stay hidden.

yeah, the way it is for the service providers its never gonna happen...

Here in Asia it's not free, but it is very low cost. It makes use of empty voice slots on the trunks, and empty time allocations over the air. Since the vast majority of people here send only text messages (around 11 billion per month), there is a lot of space left for PTT.

The UK is a country in which voice is the dominant communication method. Until that changes, the implementation of PTT would mean the networks have to add additional hardware to cover it. Very unlikely to happen. They will wait until text messages (edit: or data) get more popular before offering it to everyone.

Is voice the dominant comms method? I was under the impression we hammer SMS?

dchky wrote:Here in Asia it's not free, but it is very low cost. It makes use of empty voice slots on the trunks, and empty time allocations over the air. Since the vast majority of people here send only text messages (around 11 billion per month), there is a lot of space left for PTT.

11 billion a month may sound high, but it's only about 9 times the population of China. Apparently the mobile phone penetration rate in China is 41.3% (according to here. That all works out to be roughly 20 text messages per month per user, which isn't really that high really... And this is not even taking into account of other countries in Asia.

I've been waiting on PTT to come to the UK too, but as it is i dont think it will anytime soon.

Although with the contract im on I get 5 hours of calls and 1000 messages per month at a fixed rate, i dont see how PTT on a contract such as this would be a big problem for providers, due to them rarely getting any exra money off me a month.

on another note: I send around 1000 text messages a month and still manage to use almost 5 hours of talk time. :/

i'd say sms is my default form of communication at work as its less intrusive.

Push To Talk has already been & gone in the UK.

Orange experimented with it a few years ago but it was via Orange's own application branded "Talk Now"

There are still a few details about it on Orange's website but the service is closed to new users.

Check out http://www2.orange.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?pagename=OUKPersonal&c=OUKService&cid=1092743838062

GRIM REAPER wrote:Push To Talk has already been & gone in the UK.

Orange experimented with it a few years ago but it was via Orange's own application branded "Talk Now"

There are still a few details about it on Orange's website but the service is closed to new users.

Check out http://www2.orange.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?pagename=OUKPersonal&c=OUKService&cid=1092743838062

I'm guessing that it's something for OFCOM or trading standards to look at. The technology is already there, it's just that the networks don't see the profit from it.

It is an interesting area though. If the networks are required to spend money to enable it then OFCOM can't really force them to do that