Nextel has expanded its Push To Talk coverage area to include most of two continents, offering near-instant walkie-talkie functionality to users in both North and South America.
Nextel Communications has launched a new expansion of its Push To Talk (PTT) service, dubbed International Direct Connect. In separate partnerships with NII Holdings in South America and Telus Corp. in Canada, Nextel will support international roaming for both PTT and data services.
In cooperation with NII, Nextel customers will be able to contact other Nextel subscribers over Push To Talk in or from anywhere in the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. Portions of Baja California are already covered by a similar arrangement, and Nextel will be expanding the service to the rest of Mexico this summer. A similar deal with Telus offers the same expanded PTT area for the United States and Canada, although the two regions cannot connect to each other. (That is, Nextel users in Canada cannot contact Nextel users in Peru, for instance.)
Both International Direct Connect areas also include data services over Nextel-connected RIM Blackberry handhelds, offering mobile e-mail, two-way messaging, and wireless Web access.
Nextel has made a name for itself in the United States by being the first carrier to offer Push To Talk functionality across its entire handset line. PTT allows near-instant connections for half-duplex walkie-talkie-like communication between users in any coverage area without using up paid minutes. Many see it as the next "killer app" for mobile phones, but more widespread adoption has been stunted by the lack of an open standard. Efforts are under way, however, to solidify such a standard for inter-network PTT capabilities.
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