According to the latest mobile research from IDC, push-to-talk (PTT) services will not be deployed in Western Europe until the second half of 2004 at the earliest, and not by all mobile operators. “There are no key target markets, although IDC believes that only specific segments of the mobile market will benefit from the use of PTT services, and this will happen at different times and in different ways,” said Rosie Secchi, senior research analyst for IDC’s European Wireless and Mobile Communications service.
“It could be argued that the target market should be corporate, as initially that particular segment is more reliant on the mobile network for business purposes. However, there is no reason to suggest why in the longer term consumers should not acquire a handset that will be PTT enabled.”
As with all services launched in the mobile market – data services in particular IDC believes interoperability between networks is important for success, and PTT will be no exception. “In order to achieve this, mobile network operators should allow partnerships to give each other’s customers access to all their services,” said Secchi.
“End users want to be able to use any enabled handset on any available network without having to worry about whether they work together. This is true for all mobile services, and push-to-talk will be no different whether among businesses or consumers.”
2004-01-20
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