PTT over Cellular: We have lift-off!

Push-to-talk over Cellular (PoC) has arguably come into its own, thanks in part to the maturity of 4G networks and increasing support from the big PMR players. Sam Fenwick reports

It has been impossible to ignore PoC’s rise, due partly to the industry’s marketing machine cranking out an impressive number of case studies. However, it has been harder to fully gauge the extent to which it is being adopted by end-users in the UK. Tim Allerton, CEO at PTTI (Push to Talk International), says while his company had seen its number of PoC subscribers languish at around 5,000 for a while, it has added another 15,000 in the past 18-24 months and is currently adding an extra 150-200 connections per month on average.

“We’ve gone from proof of concept to mainstream, [with users hailing] from a wide range of different sectors, including hospitals and security companies. We’ve opened offices in Poland and Ireland and the number of radio resellers [selling PoC] has grown.”

Hans Becker, director at iPTT (international Push to Talk), tells a similar tale: “[We’re] seeing exponential growth quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year… it’s really [starting] to pick up now. The main thing that’s changed is that end-users are now starting to request PoC.” He adds that the process of educating the market about PoC “has definitely happened – not least because all the big players in the PMR market are entering the PoC market as well”.