Push To Talk revisited

Two years back I wrote an article about push to talk or PTT over cellular which carriers Verizon and Sprint were gearing up to launch in the US. Unfortunately, their PTT service today remains unsuccessful because of issues on latency, low reliability, coverage and voice quality which a subscribers’ satis-faction survey rated as problem areas. Still, interest in instant communications remains high. In fact, research which I have come across shows that in a December 2004 survey by In-Stat of 1,278 cellular phone users, nearly 72 percent of current PTT users said instant communications was "the most valuable benefit of using PTT." 

A push to talk service allows users with compatible mobile phones to instantaneously chat with up to 20 people at once at the push of a button – just like a walkie-talkie. I personally think it’s cool to have no dialing, ringing, or waiting for answers. I was hoping our local carriers would have offered this service by now, most especially since most new phone models already carry the push to talk capability. Besides, our carriers, now faced with a mature telecom market, can afford to further secure their last remaining bastion of high ARPU (average revenue per user): the post-paid and business users who, I believe, can be the initial target of this product. I recommend this upon learning that Nextel still has, to this day, the highest ARPU in the world at $70 and the lowest churn rate (switching) at 2.1 percent. Just for comparison’s sake, our local ARPU is approximately $8 and local churn rate is about five percent.

The timing can’t be better for PTT over GSM in the Philippines. Your typical outdated black Nextel-type handsets have now been replaced by more stylishly designed Nokia and Motorola models with all the bells and whistles from 1.3-megapixel cameras to music players with stereo audio. Other advanced functions of PTT over GSM have likewise been developed which even Nextel still does not carry. Let me enumerate a few of them which may lead to PTT’s quick take-up in our side of the world:

a) Handset-based Group Management: This feature provides a subscriber the convenience of creating, modifying and/or deleting groups on his phone rather than having to call customer service or using the Web to make group list changes.

b) Group Messaging: It is an instant voice messaging feature which enables a subscriber to leave voice-mail messages for one or many individuals on his group list simultaneously, without waiting for the phone to ring or remembering extension numbers. This function would be great for executives who work with a team or even among badminton groupies.

c) Instant Group Conferencing: This allows users to select all or a portion of a pre-established group to begin real-time PTT or a cellular conference call.  

I believe that all these convenient new PTT features will help build sticky wireless communities and improve communications efficiency for all of its subscribers.

Currently, the mindset is such that PTT is marketed as a stand-alone service; it should now be packaged more as a voice-based value-added service – a service from which our local carriers could generate new revenues and which could help them reduce their customer churn while providing their subscribers a practical option. Also, carriers should learn from the mistakes of their American counterparts and give the reliability, coverage and voice quality which this service deserves to ensure its success in the Philippines.   

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Patrick R. Garcia is the managing director of Bidshot Wireless Services. For comments or suggestions, e-mail [email protected].