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The Indian telecom users have got another application to experiment with. Tata Indicom on Thursday launched the first ever push-to-talk (PTT) service over its CDMA network. 

The PTT service would be available on handsets with PTT facility. "The subscriber has to buy this handset to use the PTT service. The PTT feature to be an add-on kind of feature and the set would carry all other feature of a normal phone," said Amit Bose, president (telecom), Tata Teleservices.

The inaugural offer has been made on a Kyocera handset worth Rs 5000 and the company plans to introduce more sets in the next quarter. "The post-paid scheme also has a EMI option. Apart from the handset cost one has to pay a monthly rental of Rs 99 per month and is charged Rs 3.30 per day for the service," said Dr Naresh Malhan, chief operating officer (Delhi circle), Tata Teleservices. However, the handset costs vary for pre-paid customers and they gets it for Rs 4000 and three recharge vouchers come for free. 

The services currently would be available only for post-paid customers at the moment. Also, the current Tata Indicom subscribers do not have option to exchange their current handset for a PTT set. TTSL officials said this offer would be considered with time.

The new PTT phone offers instant group voice chat with a close user group of four people. This CUG can be updated to 20 people as the network gets strengthened. As the services are coming on BREW platform, it would also support BREW games and other BREW applications.

Tata Teleservices has partnered with companies like Lucent, Ericsson and Motorola for infrastructure needs, and IBM and HP are providing the software support. The BREW application platform has been developed by Qulacomm. 

"For TTSL there has been no major investment on the network side. The incremental cost has been in increasing the data capacity and BREW servers. Of course we cannot discount the investment that would go in the marketing and sales people," said a Tata Teleservices official.

The PTT services have been launched in two circles. The company plans to cover 500 cities in the next four weeks. "By January 15 next year this service would be available in 18 more circles and by March 2005 we are planning to cover almost 1000 cities," said Bose.

Anurag Prasad