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Trans-atlantic GPRS walkie-talkie
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By Jørgen Sundgot, Wednesday 22 January 2003  
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FastMobile, an Illinois based mobile phone services company, has successfully completed a voice push-to-talk test between Chicago and London over GPRS on Symbian OS devices.
Using off-the-shelf Nokia 7650 and not-even-on-shelves-yet 3650 handsets with Symbian operating systems, FastMobile recently tested push-to-talk voice over conventional GSM/GPRS networks. A FastMobile server, located in suburban Chicago and untethered to any operator, routed the digitized voice and text conversations across the GSM/GPRS networks of US operator, T-Mobile, and UK operators, Orange and Vodafone.
The successful test was completed without requiring any special hardware to be added to the either the mobile handset or the operators' networks, an saw group voice and text instant messages sent simultaneously among the participants using a FastMobile application running on Series 60 handsets from Nokia.
In the US, mobile phone operator Nextel has popularized cellular phone-based walkie-talkie services, particularly within the business segment. To date, such services are limited to Nextel customers and have a limited range - usually within the customer's home metropolitan area - although Nextel has recently announced that they have started rollout of a nationwide service, expected to be completed by the end of this year.
By the second quarter of 2003, FastMobile plans to commercialize the walkie-talkie feature into its fastxt mobile instant messaging service which is now available in the UK to Nokia 7650 owners, with versions planned for the Sony Ericsson P800, Motorola T720 and Sharp GX10. fastxt offers basic instant messaging and presence services, allowing subscribers to check the online status of friends and send them text messages either using fastxt's own protocol, Microsoft's Messenger protocol (the software is compatible with MSN Messenger) or plain SMS.
FastMobile is also planning to bring fastxt and its whole suite of instant communications service to the US later this year.
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