Nokia’s Push to Talk over Cellular (PoC) end-to-end network solution will be launched by T-Mobile International for Europe’s first commercial PoC service. The service will be commercially available in Germany in fourth quarter 2004 and will be introduced to other T-Mobile Markets soon. With this deal T-Mobile International becomes the European frontrunner in offering this easy and instant form of mobile communication for its large customer base of both private and business customers.
Nokia’s carrier grade PoC solution provides competitive performance, a variety of features, and a smooth network software upgrade path to the upcoming Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) standard for PoC.
The agreement will further enhance Nokia’s strong relationship with T-Mobile International, to which Nokia is a strategic supplier, delivering 3G WCDMA radio access network equipment and services to T-Mobile in Germany, Netherlands and the UK as well as being a key GSM supplier to T-Mobile US and T-Mobile Netherlands.
“Our long and successful cooperation with Nokia coupled with its market leading PoC solution made Nokia the obvious choice in enabling us to launch this attractive new service for our European subscribers,” says Wolfgang Ptacek, Executive Vice President Developement with T-Mobile.
“We are very happy to continue supporting T-Mobile in launching advanced services with the most innovative and robust solutions on the market. This Push-to-talk deal demonstrates Nokia´s leading position in the service platform and core networks area,” says Robin Lindahl, Vice President, Networks, Nokia.
With more than 30 operator trials ongoing and commercial contracts with 18 operators, Nokia is leading the market for Push to talk over Cellular. Nokia’s first push to talk terminals, the Nokia 5140 and Nokia 6260 are already commercially available. Nokia has also introduced the Nokia 6170 and Nokia 7270, expected to be shipping before the end of this year. Nokia will continue to introduce push to talk capable GSM phones, including Symbian OS based smart phones. From 2005 onwards, push to talk will become available for virtually all Nokia GPRS/WCDMA phones.