DoCoMo Planning Push To Talk Service
Rumours are circulating that NTT DoCoMo will introduce a Push-to-Talk (PTT) voice service by mid-October. Several Japanese trade journals have reported the as-yet-unconfirmed plans, saying that DoCoMo plans to market a cellular phone equipped with a chip made by US Qualcomm in October. With three new carriers set to enter the domestic market in 2006, the dominant telco is said to be considering how to defend its market share by offering new services and incentives. Opinions suggest the company will respond to the popular, though as yet still not widely used, flat-rate voice services launched by Willcom in May this year and the family free-call trial running on Vodafone from July through the end of October.
Machine Translation from Article on Yahoo Japan Via: Sankei Shimbum
Portable “Voice fixed amount” and DoCoMo also introduce it. The telephone call is unrestricted. Transceiver method
NTT DoCoMo clarified that the voice fixed amount service of the cellular phone that a constant charge makes the telephone call unrestricted was started on the 15th in October. It is made for the person who registered prior in the cellular phone mutually to use the function similar to the transceiver mutually and to talk over the telephone alternately. It is inevitable that the charge price war overheats further because of the introduction of the domestic biggest business though Vodafone in Wilcom and the third cellular phone place of the PHS biggest business is performing the voice fixed amount service.
Voice fixed amount service “Push To Talk” (PTT) that DoCoMo begins is a mechanism that a special number is given to the cellular phone, and the other party is called by using this number. The button is separated and the response is waited for when speaking while pushing the button like the transceiver, and ending.
Reporting between families and corporate ..employee.. turning and reporting together because even three people or more can communicate simultaneously are high convenience though it is not possible to talk like a usual cellular phone simultaneously.
Two or more telecommunications providers are developing similar service in Europe and America. DoCoMo plans to put the cellular phone equipped with the chip made in U.S. Qualcomm with results on the market in October, and to start domestic service. If PTT is a portable range of use, it is possible to talk over the telephone by a domestic whole area, and it is possible to use it as a usual cellular phone though the range where the electric wave reaches is limited as for the transceiver. Vodafone also begins the free call service between families following starting the becoming it service in July ..PHS terminal.. Houdai if 2,900 yen in the monthly sum is paid in May Wilcom over the voice fixed amount service. Therefore, the monthly fee is expected to set the charge with about 1000-3,000 yen and competitive edge to DoCoMo.
DoCoMo decided the introduction of the new service thinking that call duration was able to be controlled if it was a transceiver method about which it alternately talked though worried that the situation that came not to have a telephone call easily was generated by making it to a factual unrestricted telephone call by the fixed price.
(the Sankei Shimbun) – Update at 2:47 August 16