Walkie-talkie time: Orange wants you to TalkNow

Orange has announced a push-to-talk (PTT) offering, aiming first at business users but eventually at mobile-phone users who don't take up data messaging services.

TalkNow allows walkie-talkie-style communication between two people or from one person to many. It is also allows an easier-than-present way to send a voice message to up to 30 people.

Because it operates over GSM networks, like SMS texting, Orange is claiming a world first - until now PTT has been a national affair, famously on Nextel's US network.

Clearly the France Telecom-owned mobile operator sees revenue-growth opportunities. "Voice is going to get even stronger for us," Orange chief executive Sol Trujillo said at a London launch event.

For now, Orange is in trials with customers such as IBM, Pfizer, the RAC and Shell, and won't announce pricing for another month or more. It is known that it will be based on time rather than individual messages, and will be bundled in with other services at a premium.

Jeremy Green, principal analyst wireless at Ovum, said: "Part of the attraction in the US has been that PTT is cheap or free, bundling it in making Nextel, or more recently Verizon Wireless and Sprint more attractive."

The rollout will begin in France and the UK, then move to Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Slovakia in the third quarter, and other territories thereafter.

TalkNow for Business aims to draw on the company's existing three million European corporate customers, with Orange targeting a million active users across its footprint during the first 12 months the service is offered.

One of the ongoing trial users of TalkNow said the voice service requires a different etiquette from traditional calls and data messaging.

Doug Clark, IBM wireless e-business leader for Northern Europe, said: "We use it as an adjunct to instant messaging and we've found that, especially in white collar environments, you need to adopt a new etiquette."

Nextel found success with PTT particularly in the US construction industry, and claims that the technology has lead to call-management options being built in to the Orange client.

Orange is starting TalkNow on the Treo 600 handset and will move it to other 'signature' smart phones, such as the Orange SPV, the Motorola MPx200 and the Nokia 6600, and then lower-end consumer handsets that typically use closed, proprietary OSes by the end of the year.