Instant communication takes too long. But all those seconds waiting for people to answer are about to come to an end.
At the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes last week, Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens announced that they are working on a standard for adding walkie-talkie features (Push to Talk) to phones.
This will mean that instead of dialling a number, users will be able to highlight a name on a mobile screen and press a button to talk to them instantly. Their voice will come out of the recipient's phone in two seconds or less.
With Push To Talk, "presence" software shows you - with their permission - which of your friends have their mobiles switched on. You can then broadcast a message, such as, "Let's meet at the pub on the corner."
As with real walkie talkies, only one person can talk at a time, which takes a bit of getting used to. But Push to Talk is particularly useful for companies that want to communicate quickly with truck drivers or sales teams.
This explains why it has caught on in the US, where it has helped make Nextel the fastest-growing US mobile operator. Nextel gets about $20 a month more from customers who also use its Push to Talk service, prompting its rivals - AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile - to announce plans to introduce Push to Talk this year.
In the past, this would have been expensive to do as Nextel uses a proprietary mobile network from Motorola including a technology called iDEN, used for private mobile radio services such as police and ambulance systems. But with the advent of higher mobile data speeds over General Packet Radio Services, CDMA 1X in the US, and third-generation mobile, it is possible to offer Push to Talk over standard mobile networks using open software.
Among the key players is Comverse, a mobile messaging software company which has a joint venture with Israeli software company Mobile Tornado. Its Push to Talk software, like many of the alternatives, can be used over wireless Wi-Fi networks, too.
In theory, this means that mobile users could use their handset as a free walkie talkie when within range of a Wi-Fi base station (or a friend with Wi-Fi up to half a kilometre away). This is ideal for skiers trying to meet up for lunch in a resort. In the US, Push to Talk software is already popular with US snowboarders and skateboarders who pay around $1 to $2 a day for unlimited use.
Even Silicon Valley's somewhat jaded investors are enthusiastic about Push To Talk. Sonim Technologies, a company chaired by Rob Wilmot, a key player at Britain's former technology hope, ICL, received one of the largest first round fundings - $21.6m - of any Silicon Valley wireless start up last year from investors including 3i and Apax Partners.
Rahul Khanna, marketing director, of Sonim, expects at least one UK mobile operator to start customer trials of Push to Talk by the end of this year. O2 is said to be running technical trials.
However, it will be possible to turn your mobile into a walkie talkie from next month if you are already using a so-called smartphone. Chicago-based fastmobile's UK subsidiary will be providing "walkie talkie" software on its www.fastmobile.com site.
To use it, customers need to fill in an online form with their mobile number and payment details, which can include reverse charge SMS (a way of debiting your mobile phone account for services).
The fastchat software will be transmitted to the customer's handset over the air like a ringtone and will work on phones including the Sony Ericsson P800 camera phone, the Nokia 3650 and 7650 and the new Siemens smartphone, which have large screens and built-in speakerphones. The recipient will need the software, too, and messages will cost between 15p and 35p.
The software turns a spoken voice message into text that can be transmitted over the airwaves via GPRS to fastmobile's internet server. From there, it is routed to the recipient's mobile, where the text will be turned back into voice.
James Tagg, vice president and European managing director of fastmobile, which is backed by $4m in venture capital from Leo Capital Holdings, BlueStar Ventures and Red Barn Investments, says: "We've just carried out a walkie talkie-like conversation between China, Cannes and the US including a Chinese speaker and a translator."
John Chapman, a senior analyst at Gartner, was a bit sceptical about Push to Talk at first but thinks that: "If operators can get the pricing right and make it available to users of prepaid mobile packages, it could be bigger than SMS."
Tal Kuttner of Comverse says: "We think Push to Talk will be the killer application over 3G. SMS is great because it's instant; this is voice SMS."
