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Jan 3 2005

Standard Insider, a new company that focuses on standards and on the mobile data services industry, has just released its insider's look at one of the most prominent services, the Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC). The new report scrutinizes the Push-to-Talk service, covering the latest developments and standardization efforts of the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA).

It also looks into business opportunities and business implications, monitoring the companies involved in this new service and discussing the required support services needed to make PoC a success story. Open issues and existing challenges are described in detail, and the initial market numbers and positioning are shown.

Dr. Ofer Weintraub, CEO of Standard Insider, highlights some of the key findings within this report:

- There are currently more than 20 deployments of Push-to-Talk systems worldwide, 65 percent of which are implemented over GSM networks (i.e., GPRS, EDGE and UMTS) and 35 percent which use CDMA infrastructure. There are many additional PoC trials underway, and a lot of announcements are expected in the coming six months.

- Four different forms of implementation exist: Standard-based, pseudo-standard, proprietary over IP and Circuit Switch (CS)-based. The report elaborates on the differences, advantages and market acceptance of these solutions.

- Nokia and Motorola demonstrate leadership in terms of operational deployments.

- The Push-to-Talk working group has been the busiest one at the OMA in the last six months. The report provides activity graphs by various parameters.

- Interoperability, Quality of Service (QoS), charging and security are the most burning issues associated with supporting the successful deployment of Push-to-Talk.

Dr. Weintraub says that some of the best-known issues, like service latencies and delays, have attracted considerable technical innovation and are well addressed within the emerging standard. He also notes that the PoC standard is expected to be finalized by the end of 2004, with interoperability tests planned into 2005. Meanwhile, other non-standard directions also are evolving, having their own advantages and challenges. "At the end of the day," he says, "it is all about interoperability, and although this can be provided in more than one way, standards offer great ubiquity and cost savings for both operators and consumers."

The Push-to-Talk Report, along with additional analysis and coverage of the mobile data services industry and standards, can be found on Standard Insider's web site: http://www.standardinsider.com

About Standard Insider

Standard Insider provides timely information on the mobile data industry by focusing primarily on standards and their impact on business. With extensive reports, on-site presentations and ordered research on emerging new mobile data services, Standard Insider addresses the issues that are most important in today's competitive business environment. Standard Insider offers a cost-effective way to maximize your business value by tracking new technologies, business models and market numbers from the point of view of standards. You get to know how standards affect the core of your business and how to assess their influence on newly deployed services.