Mobile-phone news continues its frantic march, with Siemens announcing major new support for global push-to-talk services.
Siemens Mobile said it will make its entire product range-from infrastructure to handsets-capable of push-to-talk services. Indeed, the company said more than 10 mobile operators in the United States, Europe and Asia will test its PTT technology during the first half of next year. Siemens said it expects commercial introduction of push-to-talk services from these carriers by the middle of next year.
“PoC (push to talk over cellular) is a topic of global interest that will be a big hit in 2004,” said Lothar Pauly, a Siemens Mobile board member. “We’re putting great effort into driving the market, backed by our wealth of expertise from mobile phones, middleware and applications right up to the infrastructure. We’ll be the first equipper to present customers with a complete end-to-end offering in the area of PoC that’s already based on the open, cross-vendor specification. We don’t want any proprietary solutions.”
As for devices, Siemens said almost all of its “new middle class models” will be PTT equipped by 2005. The company’s commitment follows similar moves from Nokia Corp., which recently announced all of its GSM handsets will be PTT capable by 2005.
In other handset news, iDEN carriers Nextel Communications Inc. and Southern LINC said they will sell the new Motorola Inc. i530 flip phone, a ruggedized device for workers and outdoor enthusiasts. Nextel said it will sell the phone for $125 with a two-year service agreement, while Southern LINC did not provide a price.
Separately, Nokia said it will build a special version of its MP3-capable 3300 music phone featuring rapper Jay-Z’s new Black Album. The move comes as other handset makers, including Motorola and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., have built specialized devices for various user segments.
Finally, NEC Corp. said it will use video player technology from PacketVideo Corp. in its new 616 handset for Hutchison Whampoa Group’s W-CDMA network in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. NEC said it will provide 2.5 million of the phones by the first quarter of next year. The deal comes shortly after Alcatel purchased the network division of PacketVideo.
