European-based wireless operator Orange announced plans to launch its Kodiak Networks Inc.-based Talk Now push-to-talk service in 10 countries this year starting with the carrier’s operations in the United Kingdom and France during the second quarter.
Orange explained the Talk Now service would allow customers to create buddy lists that can be used to facilitate instant conference calling, access a presence feature showing when a contact is available to talk, record a conference call and send it to users who are not available, and send a voice message to other users.
Orange noted the service would initially be available on the Treo 600 handset geared toward business users, and additional handsets including “rugged devices” and “consumer-style” handsets would be announced later in the second quarter. Pricing for the service was not announced, although Orange said Talk Now would be offered as a “premium service” and pricing bundles would be geared toward specific consumer markets.
Highlighting its expectations for strong adoption of the service, which is the first push-to-talk offering announced by a European carrier, Orange said it expects to sign up 1 million subscribers to the service within a year after launch.
Concurrent with the Orange announcement, Kodiak reported the commercial availability of its GSM line of Real-Time Exchange Systems to go along with its already launched CDMA product line.
