Is there much value in competitive PTT offerings?
Is there much value in push-to-talk offerings from operators other than Sprint Nextel?
Verizon Wireless, according to The Wall Street Journal, is planning to launch a new, faster version of its PTT service over EV-DO this summer after offering PTT for nearly five years. The news follows MetroPCS' launch of a PTT service that enables users to connect to other subscribers on other networks if they use a specific MetroPCS PTT phone. And others such AT&T and Alltel have been offering PTT services for some time now.
Ever since Nextel, prior to its merger with Sprint, launched PTT and recorded the industry's best churn and ARPU rates, competitors have been trying to replicate its success. In 2003, the first competitive offerings came on the scene, and they had little impact on Nextel's subscriber base or customer growth as they were technically inferior and could not penetrate the vast number of user groups.
Then in 2006, Sprint Nextel began losing iDEN customers, and competitors still could not achieve much market success with PTT offerings.
Fast forward to 2008, and Sprint Nextel is working on wooing back the many disgruntled iDEN users and launching QChat over EV-DO Rev. A. But the country's largest PTT operator may find a diminished market. PTT simply isn't on the top list of requirements for the enterprise market anymore, says Phil Redman, vice president of research with Gartner Research. There are only certain groups where PTT is important, he says.
That also means a diminished market for competitors too. Of course, carriers like MetroPCS are targeting the consumer and family groups, but the entire dynamic of the industry has changed. PTT was originally used to help keep voice prices down. With unlimited mobile plans on the market and features such as free calling to fellow customers of a particular operator, does PTT really offer much of a significant differentiator?
But what's a really interesting play is the idea of pushing voice and data services. For instance, one QChat initiative Qualcomm has undertaken is Yagatta, which is an advanced version of push to talk that includes simultaneous voice and data sessions. Yagatta would allow PTT to be incorporated with other services such as social networking, user-generated content, chat rooms, video text messaging and more.
Simple PTT is passé now. And Sprint Nextel understands this as it's working to add push-to-x features such as using one button to send email and pictures. With all the talk about how difficult it is for customers to navigate through menus to consume the mobile content they desire, this one-button instantaneous feature should become a powerful tool to generating data revenues. -Lynnette
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Posted by Anonymous | April 21, 2008 - 4:04pm
Thank you for the thoughtful editorial. I do, however, want to leave an observation. You quoted Mr Redman("..PTT simply isn't on the top list of requirements for the enterprise market anymore..") speaking about the future of PTT. While I agree that PTT may not have much future in those industries traditionally considered to be White Collar - I also am confident that there is not only a large but still growing market for PTT services in those industries traditionally described as "Blue Collar" (Construction, heavy manufacturing, Public Safety, transportation, services, etc). While I personally seek out and use many of the advanced features available (Audio, Video, Wireless Broadband, etc.), I don't think that the average PTT customer reallyt cares about them - he or she simply wants to be able to push the button and carry a conversation. If you think I am way off base, you need only to look at the LMR or two way radio industry. Many of the radio manufacturors and sales/service operations are thriving BECAUSE no one is offering a viable alternative. One of the features that made NexTel such a great success initially was the fact that you could literally carry on a real time coast to coast 2-way radio conversation without touching the PSTN (at least, without touching the PSTN in a visible way to either user).
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Posted by Anonymous | April 21, 2008 - 4:19pm
I agree with you. I remember how deep Nextel was trying to get into the white collar market after it had tapped much of the "Blue collar" market. I don't believe the white collar market is that much of a viable market anymore for the reasons I outlined. There will be a market for blue collar that I don't believe anyone but Sprint Nextel can get into. --Lynnette
Posted by Anonymous | April 21, 2008 - 5:58pm
Why can no one else break in? Customer service to Nextel accounts has suffered greatly at the hands of Sprint. If either ATT or VZW would make a REAL devices commitment, they would take away Nextel customers in droves. Practically the entire service industry is still using 2 or 3+ year old iDEN devices. Why? Because PTT IS important to their business. Wake up VZW or ATT!!!
Posted by Anonymous | April 27, 2008 - 10:49am
Addressing the comment by DavidB-
Customer service to Nextel accounts has not 'suffered at the hands of Sprint'...if anything, the Sprint call centers are probably perceived as worse because they have to handle all of those Nextel complaint calls stemming from that lousy technology and brick handsets.
If anything, the Sprint brand has been decimated by the terrible performance of the iDEN network that it gullibly purchased...a choked network with too many users, too little spectrum, frequency re-use issues, poor technology, and aging infrastructure that is extremely expensive to maintain.
VZW and ATT don't care about PTT...not because they're missing the boat, but because they see the writing on the wall for PTT. Certainly, it made sense prior to all of the in-network calling plans (Verizon, Sprint, etc), but those days are long gone. As a matter of fact, it is becoming even more ridiculous now that the flat fee era is here.
PTT is dead, and with any luck, it will soon be buried six feet under where no one will be disturbed by that obnoxious beep-beep anymore!
Posted by Anonymous | May 6, 2008 - 9:53am
To the obivious legacy Sprint employee. Let's face facts here. Sprint will always blame Nextel and Nextel will always blame Sprint. The main reason is simple to understand - Sprint is so consumer focused and retail oriented in their thoughts and processes. Nextel was the opposite, aggressive, streamlined (to an extent, i'm not going to say it was all great) and Sprint purchased Nextel for the business base that Nextel carried. Sprint was not busting at the seems with customers. If you really understand what happened with the merger (Sprint got rid of a lot of great Nextel people, experienced and even closed the Nextel call centers) improper training, lack of focus and direction, trying to change what was working well except for lack of coverage changes - increasing and focusing on the areas that needed to have enhancements due to crowded network ( i bet you didn't know that Nextel already had a fix in place and was working on it until Sprint but the hold on it).It's all about education in your environment. There are good and bad things to take from this. Mainly, if it ain't broke don't fix it! You can always improve but first you have to stop blaming everyone and take a step back and truly look at yourself in the mirror with objectivity.No offense, Nextel was better at that. Why else would Sprint lay off the people that were making Nextel money? They weren't always "yes" people.
Posted by Anonymous | September 19, 2008 - 12:51pm
To the Sprint person,
Nextel had the highest ARPU, and lowest churn in the industry. Period! Sprint was and never will be anywhere close to that. When the two companies merged, it was almost a merger of equals. Now Sprint has destroyed the value so much that no one wants Nextel. They should spin it off and let it go back to doing what it did before.
