A recent Yankee Group report urges carriers deploying PoC to bundle it with other communications services, such as conferencing, instant messaging and instant availability, if the service is to be commercially successful outside the US market. Yankee Group senior analyst XJ Wang has identified four key challenges for non-US operators deploying PTT/PoC:

• potential voice revenue cannibalisation in prepaid market environments;

• deploying a PoC solution in a packet-switching domain is still challenging in 2.5G network environments, where PoC requires relatively longer initial call set-up time, limited bandwidth compromises voice quality, and a lack of QoS support for real-time voice services exists;

• launching PTT services in 2.5G packet networks requires good coverage for data services, which often poses a challenge to operators due to low data user penetration. Wang believes this is particularly challenging for GPRS operators but less challenging for CDMA 1x operators;
• and current PoC specifications don’t have recommendations on how systems should function if there is no data service coverage.

"Carriers deploying PTT face changing competitive pressures in foreign markets", contends Wang. "Abroad, there are more prepaid customers for whom PTT would represent a significant cannibalisation of revenue. To help combat this, carriers in prepaid markets must create the right pricing strategy and utilise the same infrastructure for multiple services, such as PTT, ad-hoc conferencing, instant messaging and availability. PTT can be a higher margin business like SMS - if the carrier prices it right even in prepaid markets. The combinations of multiple services not only reduce the risk of potential cannibalisation, but also improve overall (return on investment) ROI".

The Yankee Group's PTT/PoC findings result from an ROI study on applications in 2.5G wireless environments. This suggested that launching multiple services would most effectively grow revenue while reducing cannibalisation of voice revenue. The ROI study also indicated that revenue from ad-hoc conferencing services would outpace PTT revenue during a 6-year period, rising from US$4mn to more than US$121mn based on a conservative service adoption rate. Instant availability services also represent a key revenue stream where pricing is set similar to SMS. The Yankee Group says that availability services have improved 'stickiness' on carrier networks, reducing churn rate over time as customer adoption rates accelerate.

Motorola in the picture
In this context PTT pioneer Motorola may have a technology enabler to hand, and may have invented two new acronyms in the process. The company reckons it's going to take 'push-to-x' to the next level as the first vendor to deliver a complete push-to-view (PTV?) solution on GSM PoC handsets. Motorola is demonstrating this offering at this week's 3GSM World Congress in Cannes.

PTV, itself the first in a family of push-to-share (PTS?) applications, enables consumers to see the presence state of called parties and instantly share pictures captured on their phones. Motorola claims that for operators deploying PoC networks worldwide, PTV capabilities provide a new real-time multimedia services data application that can lead to increased revenue and differentiation opportunities.

PTV kicks off a broader category of peer-to-peer (PTP) file sharing applications to be unveiled by Motorola over the next 12 months. Included will be one-touch video, audio and other rich media services.
John Williamson