BOSTON-Carriers looking to deploy push-to-talk service outside the United States should proceed with caution, according to a new report from the Yankee Group.
Despite successes in the United States, PTT faces several hurdles in markets outside the United States, said the firm. Those issues include voice revenue cannibalization in prepaid market environments.
In addition, the report said deploying Push to talk over Cellular solutions in a packet-switching domain is challenging in a 2.5-generation network environment where PoC requires longer initial call setup time and limited bandwidth compromises voice quality. The report also notes that launching PTT services in 2.5G packet networks requires good data coverage, which poses a challenge to operators due to low data user penetration.
A recent return-on-investment study conducted by the Yankee Group found the best strategy for revenue growth and reduction of cannibalization is to launch multiple services, including PTT, ad hoc conferencing, availability and instant messaging, offering a common platform based on IMS or softswitch architecture.
