Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Nokia tackles 'walkie-talkie' discord

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 15:28:00 -0500

Nokia tackles 'walkie-talkie' discord
By Maija Pesola in London

Published: March 16 2004 19:20 | Last Updated: March 16 2004 19:20

Nokia sought to prevent a growing row over push-to-talk mobile phone
technology with a promise that its networks and software would be
compatible with other manufacturers' offerings.

The reassurances came in response to complaints from rivals that the
Finnish company was shunning collective standards for "walkie-talkie"
mobile phones in order to get its own products on the market faster.
Push-to-talk technology, which allows mobile users to talk to one or
more people in short bursts by pushing a button on the handset, has
become one of the latest focus areas in the mobile phone industry.

Nextel, the US operator, has attracted a large number of new users with
the service, which is popular among groups of workers, such as builders,
and a number of other operators in the US and Europe are planning
similar products.
Last August, Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and Siemens all pledged to create
a unified standard for the technology through the Open Mobile Alliance,
but Ericsson says Nokia is pushing forward its own platform, which will
not necessarily work with the network software of the others.

"Nokia is pushing its own completely proprietary solution that hasn't
yet been proven to be interoperable, in order to gain lead time in the
market," said Johan Bergendahl, vice-president of marketing at Ericsson.

"By pursuing its own in-house standard Nokia can get handsets out
quicker than its competitors. It is not playing by the rules."
Ericsson, Motorola and Siemens announced plans to begin joint
interoperability tests of their push-to-talk technology, but said Nokia
had declined to join them.

Nokia insists it remains committed to the OMA standard, which is due to
be finalised this month. In the interim, however, it is offering its own
"pre-standard" technology to satisfy "market demand for a rapid launch".

These phones are due to be on the market in the second quarter.

The "pre-standard" platform, Nokia said, would later this year work with
the alternative "pre-standard" technology developed by Ericsson, Siemens
and Motorola, and could easily be altered to comply with the final OMA
push-to-talk standard, once it is agreed. However, Ericsson said that
having divergent technologies - even for a short time - was "confusing"
and said it would require considerable effort later to ensure everything
worked together.

Analysts said Nokia had also diverged from its peers in the development
of mobile base stations, and two years ago was pushing its own Enhanced
Messaging Services.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1079419677606

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