Cingular Launches Push to Talk

Alot of you make good points. That is those of you that are actually discussing cingular's participation into the PTT share of the market.

Without trying to sound like a cingular fanboy, but with a lack of a better way to pose this question, What do you think will happen 2 years from now when nextel's iDEN technology goes strictly government, and you have to revert to sprint's VoIP version of PTT?
Sprint is already in the works to intergrate new phones that use sprints old system, while the DoD is in the works of buying out sprint/nextel's portion of the iDEN technology.
Cingular took a few years to have their own PTT service, yes, but think back to when the patent on the PTT service went public, and Sprint and VZW tried to use it. W...
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There is something very important about Kodiak PTT that everyone needs to keep in mind: a Kodiak PTT call is a phone call on a standard voice circuit. It's actually a voice call to the Kodiak RTX platform (which may or may not be located in local switching facility).

So if you think about it, Cingular is charging PTT users $9.99 per month for the privilege of placing a half-duplex (one side muted) phone call to people whom they can already call (full duplex) for free.

Granted that presence (done via SMS, just like an IM application) and group call are not otherwise available, but those features are of limited value. Presence has no value for people who leave their phone on all the time, and very few people even set up groups muc...
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push to talk is trashy and annoying... spend your time and money on something better cingular... why would we need this really maybe for big buisness... but no one normal needs it... i mean cant you only use it with cingy ppl anyways... and um yeah.... cingy ppl can all talk 4 free.... just my thoughts... i hate when you here "beep" and then all of someone convo...

Ok first off i'm not going to bash any company, equipment, or everything else people are bashing on here.

Speaking from the perspective of 2.5 year retail sales rep with Cingular and a former Verizon, and Nextel customer i must say Cingular's PTT solution provides yet another avenue of business.

GSM is a world leader in network and equipment which means there are the most amount of phones available (the ability for a manufacturer to make one phone that can be sold worldwide makes them better and cheaper) while Verizon, Sprint, and Nextel use unique programming language, phone OS/software, and CDMA and IDEN technology limits selection of handsets and technology growth. Trends set overseas with 3G gsm technology are just now trickling ...
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nextel18 is just scared his little company is about to get ran over again.

lets see, all 50million+ customers on cingular can walkie talkie each other compared to 17million with nextel. And one of the worst thing about nextel is their coverage, and cingulars walkie talkie feature is waaaaay bigger. check out the map its on all of cingulars towers, which is also bigger than verizon.

nextels walkie talkie is outdated compared to the Kodiaks RTX system cingular is using. some features... real-time availability information (presence), call waiting, and the ability to convert a PTT call to a normal voice call at any time, quick grouping, voicemail, (this is all on walkietalkie feature) and much more, very similar to instant messaging featur...
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now its time to see if its good or not.. 🙂

That the Cingular PTT map shows a ton more coverage than the regular calling map on the cingular site when picking a plan???? How is it that there would be PTT coverage above and beyond normal coverage???

my girlfriend and I have contracts with Cingular for 2 years, and we're not due to upgrade our phones til next year, but we want PTT. We are on separate individual lines. Would I able to BOGO for both of us even on separate lines, and not pay full price ? Could I get the 2 year discount by extending my contract 2 years ?