Nokia and Samsung today announced a cooperation agreement aimed at bringing Push to talk over Cellular (PoC) technology to the mass market. Based on the cooperation, Samsung plans to introduce push to talk in several of its mobile terminal products during 2004 and 2005, utilizing Nokia's PoC technology.
Nokia provides Samsung with its push to talk technology as well as interoperability testing and support. Nokia's push to talk technology is based on open specification and offers a smooth migration path to the upcoming OMA standard. Open specifications and standards based solutions are the key to ensure interoperability and mass market potential for push to talk.
"Nokia's leading push to talk technology offers us a competitive platform for commercial push to talk terminal products", says Andrew Park, Vice President, R&D, Samsung. "We are planning to introduce a number of push to talk capable terminals during 2004 and 2005. We believe that the open specifications supported by Nokia are the key to success in bringing this exciting feature to our customers globally".
Nokia is also a member of the industry consortium that worked together on the PoC requirements that were submitted to the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), where the actual standardization of PoC will take place, in August 2003. In October 2003, Nokia launched its carrier grade push to talk network products for early market entry. In November 2003, Nokia launched the world's first push to talk GSM phone, the Nokia 5140. Nokia has been trialling its push to talk technology with over 30 operators globally.
"Leading operators worldwide have shown strong interest towards Push to talk and this year we will see commercial services deployed across the globe", says Kai Öistämö, Senior Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia. "In the future, we expect push to talk to become a standard feature in phones, just like short messaging is today".
During 2004, Nokia will introduce a full range of push to talk capable GSM phones, including Symbian OS based smartphones. From 2005 onwards push to talk will become available for all Nokia GPRS/WCDMA phones.
With push to talk, mobile phone users can use their mobiles like walkie-talkies, communicating with a selected group or individual with the push of a single button. It is a new direct method for one-on-one or one-to-group communications. Push to talk is especially suited for cases where users need to communicate repeatedly but occasionally with the same group or individual.
About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobile communications, driving the growth and sustainability of the broader mobility industry. Nokia is dedicated to enhancing people's lives and productivity by providing easy-to-use and secure products like mobile phones, and solutions for imaging, games, media, mobile network operators and businesses. Nokia is a broadly held company with listings on five major exchanges.
About Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunications, flat panel display and digital convergence technology. Samsung Electronics employs approximately 75,000 people in 89 offices across 47 countries. The company is the world's largest producer of CDMA mobile phones, memory chips, TFT-LCDs, monitors and VCRs. Samsung Electronics consists of six main business units: Corporate Technology Operations, Digital Media Business, Telecommunication Network Business, Digital Appliance Business, Semiconductor Business, and LCD Business.
For more information, please visit http://www.samsung.com.
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