PTT for real?

[ClemsonMarshal]

I know about all the TiKl and iPTT and all those apps that let you do PTT from iPhone to iPhone or to other smartphones, but is there any way to make the iPhone and actual PTT phone so that you can talk to people on regular phones? Our company uses Samsung Rugby II's for some people and I was going to see if there was a way to do PTT to them.

 

[ClemsonMarshal]

Anybody?

 

[Skull One]

It would be impossible to implement on an iPhone without a license from Sprint/Nextel. And there isn't an iOS developer out there that wants to even attempt to write the code much less create the servers needed to handle this. Just the translation servers to take the voice data feed and convert it to something the iPhone can use and then reverse process would probably require at least one major server per 1000 users. Then you have bandwidth issues to deal with. Heck you would need the ability to store the voice message until the iPhone user launches the app and they won't even know something is there until they get a notification. Rough guess, figure about $1.5 million USD to spin something like this up and you would have to charge for it to maintain it past the first 6 months.

 

[ClemsonMarshal]

It would be impossible to implement on an iPhone without a license from Sprint/Nextel. And there isn't an iOS developer out there that wants to even attempt to write the code much less create the servers needed to handle this. Just the translation servers to take the voice data feed and convert it to something the iPhone can use and then reverse process would probably require at least one major server per 1000 users. Then you have bandwidth issues to deal with. Heck you would need the ability to store the voice message until the iPhone user launches the app and they won't even know something is there until they get a notification. Rough guess, figure about $1.5 million USD to spin something like this up and you would have to charge for it to maintain it past the first 6 months.

Didn't realize PTT on standard phones was that big of a deal.

 

[Skull One]

Didn't realize PTT on standard phones was that big of a deal.

PTT is a royal pain to implement. Basic usage requires a send packet, acknowledge packet, establish connection packet and then burst mode voice packets. If you don't reach the person you can leave a voice packet that gets turned into a voice mail on the persons phone. Everything is done thru the data side of the phone not the voice side.

So if you wanted to deal with an iOS device you would have to buffer the interchange hand over for it to work. Now the cool thing is, you would actually be adding a feature that doesn't exist in PTT presently if you implemented it properly by allowing time delay listening and response. But the servers needed to do it would be huge. And I doubt users would want to pay roughly $8 to $10 a month to use the service. Not when unlimited nationwide cell phone calls are now the norm for contracts.