Will SprintPCS version of Treo 600 support PTT?

[Gaurav]

Phonescoop recently listed the Sanyo SCP-7200 which will be one of the first PTT (Push-To-Talk) phones for Sprint PCS. For those of you who don't know what PPT is, here's a description from phonescoop:

Push-To-Talk (PTT) is a two-way communication service that works like a "walkie talkie".
A normal cell phone call is full-duplex, meaning both parties can hear each other at the same time. PTT is half-duplex, meaning communication can only travel in one direction at any given moment.
To control which person can speak and be heard, PTT requires the person speaking to press a button while talking and then release it when they are done. The listener then presses their button to respond. This way the system knows which direction the signal should be traveling in.
New PTT systems are being introduced in 2002 that use VoIP technology to provide PTT service digitally over 3G data networks. See VoIP.

I was wondering if perhaps the Treo 600 had the capability of being upgraded with this feature in the future? Since PPT is basically an implementation of VoIP, why shouldn't this be possible on the Treo 600? Also, according to phonescoop, the SCP-7200 is only AMPS 800 / CDMA 1900, so I'ld like to think this is only a software not radio issue? PPT is one of the few features that other carriers like Nextel have had that I've seriously envied. Adding this functionality to the Treo 600 would be fantastic! Any thoughts?

[Felipe]

and what does nextel have to about this?

[KRamsauer]

Originally posted by Felipe
and what does nextel have to about this?

What do they have to **say** about this? They probably hate it. I would doubt they have any kind of patent case simply because it's so obvious that Nextel has this feature any executive of another company would surely have contacted his lawyers about it first. I'm sure they use different nuts-and-bolts architectures, but the idea of a walkie-talkie has been around much longer than Nextel.

[Gaurav]

Originally posted by Felipe
and what does nextel have to about this?

Sprint is not the only provider planning on taking on Nextel. Several others including ATT, Verizon etc have indicated that they also will be rolling out PTT feaures on their networks. For example pscp recently listed new PPT capable Samsung SCH-A690 for Verizon. Heck, the competition is getting so fierce that Verizon recently sued Nextel for industrial espionage regardinig improperly obtained handset that features PPT! The only thing Nextel has been able to do is trademark the term "PTT". By 2004, there will be several providers offerring PTT besides Nextel...

[Satman]

Hello all, I'm new to this board only because the talk about the 600. I have a samsung i330 now. I like it but it does have some limitations!

I would be first onboard if treo/sprint made the 600 PTT complaint! I was toying with the idea of going over to nextel because of this feature.

If sprint doesn't allow it on the 600, maybe future version will have this option. Hence the "600 Family" name. I'd sure love to see now though!!!

I wonder how sprint will bill us for PTT time? Would it just come out of our cell minutes? Or would it fall under the unlimited vision plan?

Glad to be on your board guys!

Satman

[Gaurav]

Originally posted by Satman

I wonder how sprint will bill us for PTT time? Would it just come out of our cell minutes? Or would it fall under the unlimited vision plan?
Satman

Welcome to Treocentral Satman!

I don't recall where I saw this, but I recall reading that Sprint would be charging $5/month for PTT feature on SprintPCS Ready link phones...

Also, I would be suprised if the Treo 600 weren't PTT capable. Afterall PTT is just VoIP on steriods. 3rd party companies like Vili are already offering VoIP solutions like Gphone for palmOS. If this can work on the Treo600, I can imagine Sprint can make PTT work as well. The question is will they?

[Satman]

I think they will if they're smart. With number portability quickly approaching, I think sprint will do anything to keep up with other competitors technology so WE don't switch carriers.

One of the big reasons why I haven't switched over yet is because I'll have a new number. Thats gone now! If sprint doesn't make PTT available on the 600 and verizon does, I'll just go over there with my #..

We'll see.. Now I'll just have to get my friends new phones now. Ohhh technology!

[potatoho]

From my understanding of the 600 there will be API to access the mic and ear from the PDA side. I believe the processor to be fast enough to compress/decompress in a reasonable amount of time, so worst case you could write your own voice-chat system. I have used the openlpc sources and they are very portable, and can give you a 1400bps to 4800bps audio stream.

But that would be pretty much a novelty without interoperability with other PTT systems wouldn't it?

[Gaurav]

Originally posted by potatoho

From my understanding of the 600 there will be API to access the mic and ear from the PDA side. I believe the processor to be fast enough to compress/decompress in a reasonable amount of time, so worst case you could write your own voice-chat system. I have used the openlpc sources and they are very portable, and can give you a 1400bps to 4800bps audio stream.

But that would be pretty much a novelty without interoperability with other PTT systems wouldn't it?

You make a good point. What the heck is the use of this if no one you call has a (Sprint) enabled PTT mobile? Unlike Nextel, which has all its phones PTT capable, Sprint will only have a certain number of these. hmmm...it might take a long while for the numbers of capable headset to make this worthwhile, unless of course Sprint could some how upgrade most existing mobiles.

Anyway Potatoho, do you know of any existing open source projects to port VoIP to palmos? Other than PTT, this would be an incredible and cheap alternative for making/receiving international calls...

Thanks...

[potatoho]

Originally posted by gfunkmagic
Anyway Potatoho, do you know of any existing open source projects to port VoIP to palmos? Other than PTT, this would be an incredible and cheap alternative for making/receiving international calls...

Thanks...

The OpenH323 project is where you'd want to start.

http://www.openh323.org/

As I recall OpenH323 was a pretty monstrous project, around 87kloc. The stuff looks pretty complicated to port over to palmos, but you could always use some middleware.

So maybe take one of the codecs like lpc10 and make a little client/server for palmos which connects to an OpenH323 running on your home machine. That sounds doable.

I've never tried any of this stuff though. I guess there are H.323 gateways which you can subscribe to get unlimited long distance or something. Get that all figured out and working with the OpenH323 project on one of the supported platforms, and then write a client/server plugin to allow the Treo to work via proxy.

[gmaugham]

I think this interoperability issue is one of the reasons Nextel is not able to break into the consumer market as they would like to. You have to convince a whole group of connected people to switch to make the PTT feature useable. (Unless, of course, you just target family units.)

I don't care whether the feature becomes available on Sprint, as long as I can disable it. I have always liked the ability to ignore a phone call and then check my voicemail. I don't want people to force me to turn off my phone just to prevent them from using PTT when it's either inconvenient for me or not permitted, such as in a movie theater.

Geoffrey

[Gaurav]

Well, according to this thread over at howardforums, it appears that the Treo 600 will NOT have the capability of being upgradeable to Sprint's Ready Link (RL) service. Sprint's RL service utilizes 1xrtt, bt apparently RL requires not only software, but hardware as well, so it's not possible to upgrade any current Sprint phone to RL. That seems unfortunate IMO b/c the whole point should be to encorage the adoption of the service to make it more ubiquitous. What's the point of having a RL phone if no one you call has a RL phone from Sprint? Too bad the limitaitons are due to hardwre restricitons...

However on another note, there's rumors that Sprint's RL may be operable with Verizon's PTT feature. Now that would be ver interesting imo...

[jimbear]

A co-worker told me Nextel's patent on the push-to-talk functionality has expired. Presumably, this would allow the competitors to offer the same thing.

Originally posted by KRamsauer
What do they have to **say** about this? They probably hate it. I would doubt they have any kind of patent case simply because it's so obvious that Nextel has this feature any executive of another company would surely have contacted his lawyers about it first. I'm sure they use different nuts-and-bolts architectures, but the idea of a walkie-talkie has been around much longer than Nextel.

[letsgoflyers81]

Originally posted by jimbear
A co-worker told me Nextel's patent on the push-to-talk functionality has expired. Presumably, this would allow the competitors to offer the same thing.

Not only did Nextel's patent expire earlier this year, but Sprint and Verizon's PTT technology is completely different than Nextel's. This new PTT wouldn't break any of Nextel's patents even if they were still in effect.

[mwylde]

Originally posted by gmaugham
I don't care whether the feature becomes available on Sprint, as long as I can disable it. I have always liked the ability to ignore a phone call and then check my voicemail. I don't want people to force me to turn off my phone just to prevent them from using PTT when it's either inconvenient for me or not permitted, such as in a movie theater.

In a movie theatre you should have your phone off anyways. What's the difference between somebody calling you and it ringing and somebody ptting you?

[tjd414]

I read an article this week that PTT over a cellular network is completely different than for Nextel's network. The biggest drawback (aside from people having the equipment to actually carry on the conversation) is that it will take almost as long to use the PTT as for the cell call to go through. Nextel, OTOH, has instant communication via the walkie-talkie.

This article also stated that at most, Nextel has about 18 months before SPCS, T-Mo & Verizon catch-up completely.

Anyone else heard this stuff?

[Gordon-Gekko]

The way I see it, Nextel will remain 900 Lb gorilla for long time. Instant direct connect, compared to 5 to 10? second delay of these new Johnny come latelys will definately derail any grand scheme that VZN has to steal any appreciable amount of NXTL's customers.
NXTL & MOT paid their dues in hardware and software development getting the iDEN system to where it is today. Competitors are not going to flip a switch and have a competing system that can match NXTL's service overnight. Maybe in 2-3 yrs, not tomorrow.

Even if they could match the performance that NXTL has today, do you think their infrastructure could handle this new customer load? No way.

GG

[Gaurav]

Originally posted by Gordon-Gekko
The way I see it, Nextel will remain 900 Lb gorilla for long time. Instant direct connect, compared to 5 to 10? second delay of these new Johnny come latelys will definately derail any grand scheme that VZN has to steal any appreciable amount of NXTL's customers.
NXTL & MOT paid their dues in hardware and software development getting the iDEN system to where it is today. Competitors are not going to flip a switch and have a competing system that can match NXTL's service overnight. Maybe in 2-3 yrs, not tomorrow.

Even if they could match the performance that NXTL has today, do you think their infrastructure could handle this new customer load? No way.

GG

Hmmm...intereseting. From the reports I've read on the boards at HoFo's by people who have supposedly tested out the Sprint RL feature, they claim connection delay is actually around 5 sec max now. The reports are that the intial betas had lengthy connection delays but it has been supposedely been improved significantly since then. Of coures this may all change with the increased traffic and congestion of bnadwidth once more RL phones are released... Anyway, I doubt Sprint/Verizon will be able to challenge Nextel immediately wit PTT, but in a couples years perhaps...

[mjorange]

I've just confirmed with a HS rep that the 600 will not support PTT.

[Gaurav]

Okay, so does anyone here have any experience with VLI's Gphone on the T|C? Does anyone know if this will work on the Treo600 via 1xrtt?!!