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verizon rolls out push-to-talk

there are a lot of things i like about nextel. first things first: they are profitable. second, they're phones seem to work places no other phones can reach. if you are going on a boat a mile offshore, bring a nextel phone. third, they know their market.

part of knowing their market is push-to-talk (PTT). you can always count on a building contractor or an IT technician to be carrying a nextel phone. small groups that need to communicate with the push of a button for a very fragmented, asynchronous conversation. PTT is a replacement for texting for professions where working with your hands is necessary, and you just need to get your boss or employee on the phone with the push of a button.

being proprietary works for nextel. if you want to be in the loop, you gotta have a nextel phone. this reduces their churn and allows them to charge much higher rates than most other operators. other MNOs want to change this by building their own loyalty groups, and churning users away from nextel to a network that "offers more".

verizon today announced this capability making them the first north american operator other than nextel to do so.

i predict that verizon, sprint and others will not enjoy similar success as nextel with PTT. nextel has spent years cultivating the market of PTT users, and their implementation is built into the hardware, software, and protocols used on the network. although verizon is using motorola's CDMA PTT infrastructure, i don't expect the implementations from other carriers to be as slick. i've heard that sprint's implementation is much more just like an always on IM buddy list that will dial quickly in the background. i don't think it will feel the same, and although the marketing will try to convince the public otherwise, i don't think consumers will be fooled. we aren't going to see lots of nextel subs churning to other networks because PTT on competing networks.