Talk:Push-to-talk

Why not in hardware; phone-to-phone?

Since mobile phones are radio receivers/transmitters, why can't/doesn't Nokia, say, provide the feature for two Nokia phones to communicate together WITHOUT the need of a carrier being involved? The range would be limited, but it would work for two people trying to communicate in a supermarket or office or mall, and even in the desert or mountaintop or at sea.

80.198.22.18 (talk) 12:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I've wondered that. Does anyone know? Twilight Realm (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

In fact, somebody does.  :-) The reason that things like iDEN and PTToC work on phones as small as cellphones *is the tower network*. The maximum power output of a digital cellphone these days is 300mW. That's usually plenty to get you to a 200-300ft tall tower within half a mile of you that contains 100W transmitters and very sensitive receivers... but radio to radio, it will only get you about a quarter mile or so; maybe a little further over a big flat parking lot. Motorola pulls this off with DirectTalk because most of their phones are physically larger, with bigger batteries that the users are *accustomed* to charging daily, and I don't buy their "Six miles" claim anyway... though if they're using CDMA, they'll likely get longer range than with other modulation schemes.
--Baylink (talk) 03:12, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, some of the Nextel phones (I believe the i880) had a feature that even if your not connected to the network you could atleast ptt within like a mile radius with a few different channels. I remember once I shut the service on and the phones were useless, but the ptt within range made them perfect walkie talkies. 66.31.32.86 (talk) 03:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

HUH?, When?

When exactly was "several years ago"??? When was this written? Certainly if an exact date could not be verified, then at least a stockholder out there could tell us what quarter of what year it was released.

"Nextel Communications, now merged with Sprint, introduced mobile push to talk several years ago using iDEN"

This was been changed to 1996. I noticed someone had a wrong date of 2003, which is very wrong. It can be verified by this Boston.com news clipping [1]

---

point of ptt

THe article needs to explain what is actually the point of PTT. Why is it better? Why is it cost-effective? Why is it interesting to operator and customers. Paranoid 21:05, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Suggestions:

• 1) provides "walky talky" (how do you spell that???) service which means customers don't have to dial every time so can make more shorter calls
• 2) encourages calling in same network (currently)
• 3) is different from phone call so can be price differentiated
• 4) means people don't have to carry separate two way radios, can use mobile for both functions

Mozzerati 07:12, 2004 Jul 7 (UTC)

I was going to ask the same thing. 1 makes sense, though I'm not sure if it's the whole reason. 2 makes it interesting to the networks, but doesn't explain why I just saw an advert for PTT. 3 doesn't really apply anymore, since as far as I know, regular calls to the same network are free.

Maybe 1 really is the whole reason--if you know that you're going to want to communicate intermittently, PTT would be helpful. But enough uneducated speculation. Does anyone know the answer?

[above comment unsigned]
---

I think it's usually spelled "walkie-talkie". I agree, the article needs a concise explanation of the reason why PTT is desirable on cellular networks. --71.242.27.236 (talk) 21:09, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Also do not understand what advantages PTT has over usual mobile networks if you still need a mobile network for it to work, so you will still pay the price (plus the limitation of users having to be on the same network). Unless it's less expensive to introduce PTT network coverage or lower running costs for the carrier, I don't see any benefits. 87.110.85.201 (talk) 20:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Before blackberry, nextel and iDEN phones were the must have standard for businesses. Including cleaning companies, construction companies and even a lot of police had them. It allowed them to communicate instantly with the workers/crew. 66.31.32.86 (talk) 03:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

more on end-user and carrier benefits

I would put most emphasis on the new service, which this provides for the user. If "lower call costs" were the main issue, cellular carriers would hardly offer push to talk services.

So ability to talk instantly to one or many people with very easy-to-understand user interaction, which is known from walkie-talkies, enables new forms of mobile communication. However, the walkie-talkie analogy breaks down fast. Users first ask usually is "what is the range?", whereas push to talk has of course "unlimited" range, since it is network based. Some push to talk services target communication within small, known groups (e.g. small companies or families), others follow the model of Internet chat rooms, where anybody can join into an open session around a defined topic. Since push to talk is a fairly new service in the consumer markets, it is difficult to predict how it will be used and which new social norms arise out of it. Generally push to talk can be positioned as inbetween traditional mobile telephony and (voice) instant messaging. The former is characterized by instant response time in communication, the latter by typically by response times of minutes.

On the carrier (operator) side, the main benefits are new revenue opportunities with differentiated, value-based pricing. The underlying assumption is that users are willing to spend more for mobile telephony if they experience better mobility.

--DrMac 13:34, 2004 Jul 11 (UTC)

PoC link incorrect; Push to Talk over Cellular != Proof of Concept

As in the subject: Push to Talk over Cellular (short PoC, as given in the entry) is not Proof of Concept (that's where the link is set to - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PoC).

Z.

IMS == IP Multimedia Subsystem (and not as written)

In the article the acronym 'IMS' is expanded into "IP Multimedia System". The correct term is actually "IP Multimedia Subsystem".

• Yoram

Interface?

Hello, I've never seen Push to talk in operation, so maybe somebody could clear up a few things for me?

1. Does the receiving side has to turn on this feature manually at the beginning?
2. Does the receiving side has to turn the feature on for certain people?
3. How does it work at the receiving side: Do you get a beep like "you've got an sms" and then when you press a button, you can hear the message? Or does the message get played back instantly through the speaker? If so, doesn't one need a very loud speaker considering that there might be noise around, the phone could be in a backpack etc. Isn't here a big risk of not receiving the message? Can a received message be repeated?
4. On the sending side, does the feature have to be turned on after every startup of the phone?
5. Is this a feature that is directly available from the "idle" screen of the phone? If so, are there normally some indications whether who will hear your PTT message once you invoke the feature?
6. Is it possible to talk to two people independently (like "now I want to talk to A, but B shouldn't hear it. Now I wanna talk to B only."?)
7. How much of a delay does PTT take? less than a second, or more like 10 seconds, considering that it uses GPRS on GSM?

Thanks for any clarifications :-) Peter S. 7 July 2005 11:06 (UTC)

Hi, a few answers for your questions. These are mostly based on Nokia's (GSM) system, I have no clue how the Motorola stuff works. (Most probably something similar, anyway :) )

1. Yes, the receiver has to be either part of a group ("subscribed" to a "chat-room") or at least available to the incoming PoC (VoIP) calls (i.e. "logged in" to the service)
2. It's possible. The receiver party can decide to turn the feature on for everybody. Or just for x,y and z. Or everybody except x,y and z.
3. It depends on the settings. :) Most likely the default setting is similar to a walkie-talkie radio: if it is swithched on and the "other end" starts sending (saying) someting, you receive it (the radio "broadcasts" it) instantly - regardless if you're in hearing distance from the equipment or not. If the "other end" notices no answer, probably s/he will retransmit (typical ICQ (=I seek you) on CB radio) until you notice it or s/he get tired :)
   But! Unlike a real radio, this PoC stuff can be set-up to ring on incoming talk-burst, so the receiver will hear the message only when explicitly accepts the call. The received message cannot be repeated, again, same like the radio.
4. Not necessarily. It can be set-up to automatically "log-in" to the service after boot-up.
5. Typically the handset has a "PTT-button" on the side of the handset. When the service is on, by pressing and holding down the button you can start talking to your default group - if you already set up any. :) In this case there is no indication who will hear it - potentially anybody, who've subsctibed to that same group. Similarly, if you enter a line of text to an IRC channel, you wont know exactly who will receive it. You can, of course, query from the server, who is active on the group at that moment.
6. Yes, but probably it's a bit of painful exercise :) Select A, call him with a 1-to-1 talk-"burst". Close the channel. Then select B, call him with 1-to-1; close the channel. Repeat until you tired enough. :)
7. The delay over GPRS is a few (1-2) seconds, over 3G (UMTS) it's virtually nothing. But it doesn't really matter, as it is half-duplex, you never truly "converse", rather talk-listen-talk-listen.

I hope it helped to clarify a few things. Cheers, CsTom 19:52, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Fantastic answers, thanks a lot. Maybe we could add some of those answer to the article itself? Peter S. 20:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, perhaps that would be a good idea. :) However, I don't feel that I would be capable to do that... Please, feel free to update the article. :-) Anyway, I'd suggest to separate the "old" 0G PTT radio stuff and this "new" 2.5G GSM/GPRS network service. It just doesn't make sense for me to combine this two, way too different things together (btw. this PoC is rather analogous to Trunked Radio Systems not to the PTT. Cheers, CsTom 21:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Also a Question

As push to talk is just a half-duplex voip protocol, there should exist free implementations of this? are there any public servers I can use instead of the commercial ones given by my provider? helohe 11:50, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Sonim

A new page must be created for Sonim. The old link pointed to a wrong reference.

PTT and two-way radios

Since the term "Push-to-Talk" has been used by two-way radio users much earlier than mobile phone users, I've added an explanation about PTT on two-way radios... and also rewrote some earlier sections about the technology on mobile phones. The rest of the article seems loosely formatted and needs some work to be wikified. --Altailji 02:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Linkfarm

The external links to manufacturers' sites should be removed per WP:NOT#LINK, WP:SPAM, and WP:EL. --Ronz 18:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Removed --Ronz 23:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of different mention of PoC solution provider

Inclusion of Genaker as provider of PoC solution was removed twice, could I understand the reasoning of it??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mmanta (talk • contribs) 11:50, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of reasons:

1. WP is no Yellow Page collection
2. Notability, we need an article to prove that. I do not know, why you article failed, but without ....
3. In general, advertising is not wanted

Greetings --Kgfleischmann (talk) 12:27, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

@Mmanta A good advice, try to improve you Genaker article in User:Mmanta/sandbox, if you feel it is ok, ask the folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Telecommunications for a review. With a notable article Genaker may come back of course --Kgfleischmann (talk) 13:52, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Article too difficult

I turned to this article to try to understand push to talk. I still don't, after having read it. I'm baffled by the parts that try to explain what it's for, what the point of it is, especially "Such a system does not allow for casual transmissions to be sent to other parties on the network without first dialing them up, as is provided by two-way radios." What does this mean? APW (talk) 08:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound elitist, but the purpose of this article shouldn't be to *sell* the idea of PTT, but merely to explain it. If you don't understand why PTT service might be a good idea after reading this article, then it's probably just not *for* you, and that's fine. Explaining it properly will very much entail Original research, which is likely why, four years later, people still sometimes read this article and don't get it. PTT isn't for everyone. But for those whom it *is* for, it's pretty critical.
--Baylink (talk) 03:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

This is obviously a work-in-progress, however progress has stopped. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.97.6.118 (talk) 08:59, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I turned here to find out more about my wireless telco's offerings. The article did not enlighten me. However, the "Interface" discussion was quite helpful. I got a sense of how PTToC might work in practice, and why my provider promotes it more for businesses than consumers. Please, someone, rewrite this material and incorporate it in the article. Maybe a heading such as "Example of use". It should be a key part of the article.

I am sure PTT is not for everyone -- but many people will still want to know what it is and how it differs from normal voice telephony. Solo Owl (talk) 17:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

An example of an application where PTT is very useful is for police/government surveillance teams. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.69.143.240 (talk) 23:22, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Is it clearer now than it was half a year ago? Jim.henderson (talk) 17:01, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Mobile section

The section named mobile makes no sense in this article. It's supposed to be about ptt, now how regular mobile phones work. Not to mention there should be a section on iDEN, and how it was able to ptt to someone clear across the country instantly, which I might add, all the other phone companies tried to utilize ptt and failed horribly. On att I believe the wait was like 6 seconds to connect. While iDEN was instantaneously.

Also the mobile section has no sources. What do you guys think? 66.31.32.86 (talk) 02:59, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Desktop/web PTT communications software

I'd like to expand the list of software applications that use PTT as their primary means of voice communications. Can anyone help me compile such a list? I've found references to these implying they're PTT, but other than TeamSpeak, I have not verified any of them:

• Teamspeak
• Mumble
• RaidCall
• Vivox
• GameVOx
• Twitch
• Mohawk Voice
• Roger Wilco
• GSC
• Spread
• C3
• Razer Comms
• Discord
• Ventrilo
• Blizzard Voice Chat
• Overtone

PetesGuide (talk) (K6WEB) 00:06, 24 June 2018 (UTC)