Have heard that some of the new nokias & other phones have this, anyone know how good the range is & if the use of walkie talkie will be free.

Thinking this could save people a lot of money so can't see phone networks being to keen on the idea.

I know phones in america have had this facility for 3/4 years and they don't have to pay extra.

Thanks

chopper.

 

it's called push to talk and it's coming in by the end of this year as for the range it's global !!

 

Do you have to make your own "khurk!" noise everytime you speak though?

 

I think the default noise is going to be set to the 'Crazy Frog' ringtone

 

As long as it isn't "Nokia Tune"

 

Doesn't P2T allow for the same cost for local and international 'calls' ?

 

Some of the phones in the US that have had this functionality act exactly as a standard 'walkie talkie' does - ie uses just the transmitter and receiver of the phones to communicate over a short distance. Commonly US networks are still analogue, and hence this is easy technology to implement. This is very different to PTT over GPRS or GSM...

PTT aims to use spare capacity of the network to allow users to instantly establish a person-to-person communication across the network from handset to handset wherever they may be. Hence it uses the network, in much the same way as a regular call, but has minimal set-up time and can be considered instantaneous. It's good for the networks as a speech path is only opened when the PTT button is pressed - not all the time (like in a regular phone call) so is efficient in network terms. However, you can bet your life there'll be a cost associated with it.

See here for a bit more info http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,62519,00.html

 

I believe Kent police have been trying a similar thing

 

PTT has been on Nokia phones that have been available for some time, dont know anyone that has actually used it though!