When you think push-to-talk in the US, Sprint's
Direct Connect service is still the very first thing that comes to mind -- but Verizon and AT&T both continue to soldier on with their own significantly less popular solutions to meet the needs of niche markets that might otherwise bail for iDEN. Big Red's stable is getting a little bigger this week on news that the
BlackBerry Tour 9630 will magically be made PTT-compliant through the availability of a new app tomorrow that'll work with Verizon's existing PTT plans. As soon as the app's installed, the Tour's so-called convenience button on the side will be instantly transferred into a PTT button, at which point you'll be chirping it up with the best of 'em -- and even better, the service will be free for anyone activating both a "qualifying" voice plan and BlackBerry data plan, so odds are good you won't actually pay a dime for the new functionality.
Separately, we're hearing that Verizon's Tour will be upgraded to BlackBerry OS 5.0 this evening, and push-to-talk is prominently listed as one of the new features added in the upgrade according to a
GizmoFusion leak -- so odds are very good these two pieces of news are related. In other words, even if you're not interested in PTT capability in the slightest, you should stand to benefit a bit from it as the spoils of 5.0 filter down to you; now let's just add in a
WebKit-based browser and we'll be good to go, right?
posted March 29th 2010 3:41PM
Well, once again, while Sprint continues to ignore the Nextel iDEN side of its business, Verizon and AT&T continue to make phones that will attract that very market. Way to go Sprint, you MORONS!
@emaildejan sprint has a blackberry with push to talk well over a year now. There nt ijnoring it. Since hensse got the in 07 they let other cellphone companys besides moto create phnes for there iden service. N they continew to be the undesputed number one career for the government n bussinesses alike. With more then 700 million dollars worth of contracts with the gov. N god knws how much with multinational n national privt companys.
@saddam3
So NOT true. There is NO manufacturer other than Motorola when it comes to iDEN. So, PTT via CDMA doesn't really count. Plus, have you actually USED PTT on Sprint's CDMA network? It's pathetic. It's just as bad as Verizon's, only it costs more!
Now, as for that figure you quote for the government, you do realize that Sprint LOST all but one of its former government contracts that Nextel had held since inception, right? The last contract that Nextel held went to AT&T since Sprint utterly REFUSED to offer Nextel iDEN handsets to the government as a solution. Go figure.
Trust me, those of us who are forced to use Sprint (because they own Nextel) HATE Sprint. This network, which at one time was stellar, has been reduced to a smidge higher than garbage.
I had OS 5.0 on my Tour, and that was 3 Droids and 2 Storms ago. What the heck Verizon?
just got the update, errr....that is to say that the update has started to download which is taking forever. Hopefully it will be done by the morning.
Oh my how the Blackberry faithful slowly just fell away and have moved onto other platforms. Rim and the carriers don't seem to give a crap anymore... Sounds like a compnay that is in the process of still trying to dig it's way out, one that was once on top as well...a' la Palm! Way to go BB...
if it's nt iden it's not push to talk.