FastMobile, a Schaumburg, Ill.-based mobile phone services company, Tuesday announced that it successfully completed a voice walkie-talkie (push-to-talk) test between Chicago and London using two standard mobile phones.

The company said the test used a FastMobile application running on off-the-shelf Nokia 7650 and 3650 handsets. A FastMobile server routed the digitized voice and text conversations across the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) data networks of U.S. operator T-Mobile and U.K. operators Orange and Vodafone.

FastMobile said it plans to add the walkie-talkie feature to its fastxt mobile instant messaging service by the second quarter of 2003. Fastxt is available now in the United Kingdom, and the company said it plans to bring the service to the United States later this year.

Fastxt is a mobile messaging service that allows subscribers to see when their friends are online and send instant text messages simultaneously to as many friends as they like. Fastxt also lets subscribers send and receive SMS text messages as well as communicate with MSN Messenger friends at their PCs.

FastMobile's services work on Symbian OS and Java handsets.