Nokia will host commercial OMA PoC and Presence services for 3

Posted by Nick Niesen on November 1st, 2010

Nokia will host commercial Push to talk over Cellular (PoC) and Presence services for 3 Scandinavia in Sweden and Denmark, thus allowing the operator to roll out the solution more quickly and efficiently. The service, enabling people to use their mobile phones like walkie-talkies, communicating with a selected group or with individuals at the push of a button, will be launched in September.

The agreement marks the launch of the world's first commercial Open Mobile Alliance (OMA)-compliant Push to talk over Cellular service, leveraging Nokia's leading position in GSM/WCDMA 3G-based PoC, unique experience from terminals, knowledge of consumer behavior, and systems integration. The PoC services are interoperable across all OMA-compliant wireless networks and handsets. Nokia will operate the PoC platform from its new Hosting Center to be opened in Vienna, Austria in September. Nokia will also deliver 3 Scandinavia Nokia Eseries business devices with preset PoC settings.

"After a successful push to talk trial with Nokia, we are confident in Nokia's ability to host the service for 3 allowing us to concentrate on our core business," said Jörgen Askeroth, Chief Technology Officer, 3 Scandinavia. "Arranging meetings, for example, will be cheaper and and faster by push to talk than by a regular mobile phone call."

"Nokia Mobility Hosting tackles the major challenges operators face in launching and managing as-yet unproven new services -cost, complexity, risk- and gives them the confidence to explore and discover important new revenue streams," said Patrik Sallner, Head of Hosting Service Line, Networks, Nokia. "Hosting is a rising telecoms industry trend, and an area where Nokia intends to grow."

Hosting is one of the many tools that Nokia can offer operators to help grow their business in the face of ever-toughening competition and growing technological complexity. Hosting sits alongside Managed Services to form one of the main pillars of Nokia's growing Services business unit. Nokia is a leader in the managed services market, with 40 agreements in 31 countries.

Nokia's end-to-end push to talk solution offers a full feature set, and is compliant with the OMA standard. It also includes Nokia Presence solution which adds a whole new dimension to push to talk by letting mobile subscribers know how and when they can reach their family, friends, or colleagues - before making a call. Nokia Push to talk over Cellular is part of Nokia's IMS for fixed and mobile offering and compliant with 3GPP IMS standards. In addition to voice, the solution will be capable of supporting various push-to-media, such as video. With commercial contracts for 53 PoC service offerings, and several operator trials ongoing, Nokia is leading the market for Push to talk over Cellular in GSM.