RESTON, Va.—Nextel Communications Inc. and Motorola Inc. reported the successful testing of voice coder software designed to nearly double Nextel’s wireless voice capacity, and they said Motorola will deliver a software release enabling traveling capability for Nextel’s Direct Connect service allowing users to roam into Nextel markets that are not part of their regional service area.
Motorola expects to complete the integration of the vocoder software during the second half of 2003 with handsets supporting both existing and new software available around the same time.
The Direct Connect roaming capability is scheduled for delivery during the fourth quarter of this year, with an additional software upgrade expected early next year allowing the push-to-talk function to be used virtually anywhere in the country.
