Push To talk Over Cellular Wireless (PoC) Phase 1

1st April , 2004

Europe : Sonim Technologies, the leader in enabling wireless data networks to deliver services including the Push-to-Talk (PTT) capability, today announced that the Push to talk over Cellular (PoC) Phase 1 specification is proven as a viable application over today's GPRS networks. This was showcased by several vendors, including Sonim, at CTIA last week. Initial implementations prove that current GPRS networks can be used to provide competitive IP-based Push-to-Talk service.

The PoC Phase 1 specification is the only published and complete Push-to-Talk specification and it has been submitted to the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). The PoC solution is defined and supported by industry leading wireless operators and manufacturers. The specification is publicly available, complete with well-defined use cases and protocols. The standard aims to provide consumers and business users with a seamless Push-to-Talk experience -- using existing wireless data networks, such as GPRS.

"There is only one PoC specification that has broad support in the industry and is submitted to OMA today; all other Push-to-Talk solutions are proprietary with no clear path to standardization or interoperability," said Joakim Wiklund, CTO at Sonim Technologies. "We are experiencing positive results over properly tuned GPRS systems -- both in laboratory testing and in the field using live networks."

The key to successful PTT service deployments using today's GPRS technology is network optimization. In a GPRS network, the inherent round-trip delay is approximately one second; decreasing to 600 milliseconds in a well-tuned network, as verified by standard ping-tests. Furthermore, measurements of PoC-implementations, both in the laboratory and over real networks, indicate the following latency numbers:

-- Initial push to tone latency of 1-2 seconds, with subsequent push to tone latency below 1 second

-- Media latency of approximately 1 second

These numbers will further improve as both the PoC standard and GPRS networks are refined with the introduction of, for example, delayed uplink TBF (Temporary Block Flow) release in GPRS handsets.

The PoC Phase 1 specification is the first step in the natural standards evolutionary process, with the definition of PoC Phase 2 specification already underway. Phase 2 specification, with further enhancements, is designed to be fully backward compatible with the Phase 1 specification.

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