To facilitate interoperability among push to talk products from multiple vendors and multiple technologies and to prevent market fragmentation, Ericsson expands its terminal verification and integration programs to address push to talk functionality.
Ericsson will verify and integrate products according to the open, cross-vendor specifications for Push to talk over Cellular (PoC) that a group of mobile industry leaders, including Ericsson, defined in August 2003. The initiative will help prevent marketplace fragmentation by ensuring early alignment of terminals in anticipation of the expected growth of push to talk services and subscribers.
"Interoperability is a prerequisite for rapid uptake of new services, and this will help address that issue," said Bo Bergström, Vice President Product Strategy and Portfolio Management, Ericsson. "From its very first commercial deliveries Ericsson's push to talk system - Ericsson Instant Talk - will be interoperable with devices from other vendors."
Ericsson Instant Talk has already successfully connected the first push to talk calls on a public network. Trial activities will continue and the first commercial, PoC compliant end-to-end deliveries are scheduled for the end of Q1 2004.
Ericsson Instant Talk complies with the PoC specifications based on the 3GPP and 3GPP2 IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and will operate in live, standards-based GSM/GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA and CDMA2000 networks. This will enable interoperable push to talk solutions to be deployed on a global basis.
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Ericsson
Eva Sparr, Ericsson Communications
Phone: +46 8 719 57 50, or +46 8 719 69 92
Email: press.relations@ericsson.com
About push to talk, the PoC Specification and Ericsson Instant Talk
Push to talk is a means of quick one-to-one or group communication. The service enables users to communicate instantly over a packet-switched network, functioning in a similar manner as two-way radios. The service fits an array of different situations, and it is especially well suited for small and medium enterprises that need frequent intermediate contacts. It also appeals to consumers that can voice chat with friends and family Interoperability is achieved through product development according to open specifications and subsequent interoperability testing. It allows operators to choose from multiple vendors for system and phone investments. The PoC specifications are the only open multi-vendor specifications available.
Ericsson Instant Talk - the Ericsson push to talk solution - offers a PoC compliant solution that will secure interoperability with a wide variety of terminals on the market. It is a scalable, high performance solution developed for GSM/GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA and CDMA2000 networks.
