Who Ever Said There was a Strong Consumer Market for Push-To-Talk?

Implications: 1.      Why is the leap made in the source article that moving push-to-talk to CDMA means that Sprint is going after the consumer space in a big way for this service? 2.      And even if that assumption was  correct, why is there no questioning of Verizon’s move to put this capability on its own CDMA network? 3.      There will continue to be a strong market for PTT in government and business applications.

Analysis:  It was not that Nextel “decid[ing] to target the consumer [PTT] market” that “ultimately damaged the brand.”  It was the fact that an increasing number of users meant that the service quality, such as for voice calls, took a nosedive because of the capacity constraints on the iDEN network.  In addition, text messaging is not going to be an adequate substitute for the immediacy of PTT or for real-time back and forth communication, especially for emergency personnel.  Sprint wants to get its PTT service onto the superior CDMA network to improve the experience for the current Nextel subscribers – as well as to eventually move them completely over to the CDMA side.   

It is not exactly a bulletin that PTT does not have “mass market appeal.”  It is Sprint’s “vice president of business and government solutions” that is addressing the matter.  He is talking about  “specialized and more general business applications.”  In the case of “push to x,” again, the same type of users could easily be the dominant play.  

There are just way too many dispatchers, etc. that have gotten very used to PTT – and many of them are not likely to change these well-established habits.