Telecom Closing down Push 2 Talk Service

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Telecom Closing down Push 2 Talk Service - 31 July, 2008

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manhinli

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#108531 4-Feb-2008 17:46

paradoxsm: I was a big fan of the Quickchat service and used it long after it's official demise (083842428) but as the VSP upgrades had to be done, this legacy system got totally pulled just recently.

My dad used that too (when he was on 025). What could you possibly say in 30 sec?

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freitasm

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#108545 4-Feb-2008 18:53

I wrote the specs and managed the project for QuickChat on the VSP side of things (Unisys). We had one developer for that - and that was the team.

Telecom planned QuickChat to front the Vodafone SMS since at the time of the launch Telecom did not have any SMS infrastructure and only one handset that supported the standard back then.

The 30 seconds came after studies where Telecom found that most 160 characters messages could be spoken on an average 30 seconds message.

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manhinli

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#108546 4-Feb-2008 18:56

You said that in your blog a year ago: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/653

30 seconds wasn't completely useful to my dad, although I do like the concept as it's way more easier to send and also listen to (rather than looking at a tiny screen and the recipient looking at some weird TXT language)

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#108558 4-Feb-2008 20:24

They did kind of always have it but nobody knew even what it was if you asked but it was called MOSMS TxtTalk from memory until Vodafone released the sms capabilties to prepay and Telecom knew there was a missed market.

Quickchat was 15 seconds but I found a bug which if executed carefully would allow unlimited message length. It was quickly fixed when I reported it. The ability to dial 083842428 from a Vodafone mobile bug was never fixed (and enabled operational access to the service long into last year after it's official closedown)

Another service casualty was Chatmail, a voice recognition email service which worked superbly.
It was renamed Wordup, then pulled about 2003. Again full of openings and abuse to the know.

And as for Djuice, ugh!

also let's not forget iHug's ill-fated Text to Voice
"Sending a t2v is very very cheap. Our charges are in NZ dollars and because the NZ dollar is virtually worthless these days, your currency conversion will give you huge savings!! Check out how much your money can buy!!"

manhinli

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#108561 4-Feb-2008 20:46

t2v... ah, I can still remember that. That was a complete flop. I never got to try it though. I would wonder how the recipient would react when a robot-ish voice 'anonymously' called them.

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#113338 27-Feb-2008 12:36

Interesting... Across the Tasman Telstra is right now launching their PTT service:

Telstra, Australia's leading telecommunications and information services company, announces the national launch of Telstra Talk Now that includes a Push to Talk (PTT) service based on the Kodiak Networks RTX platform. Along with the Telstra Talk Now service offering, Telstra announced earlier this month that the ZTE F159 handset, with the embedded Kodiak PTT client and Assisted Geographical Positioning Systems (AGPS) is available on the Telstra Next G™ network, Australia’s largest and fastest national mobile broadband network.

“Kodiak is very pleased to be deploying the Telstra Talk Now service with Telstra,” said John Vice, president and CEO of Kodiak Networks. “Operators across the globe have recognized the Kodiak RTX platform as one of the fastest and most reliable on the market.”

The Telstra Talk Now service provides a secure, group communications solution on the Next G™ network, Australia’s largest and fastest national mobile network. The service allows users to make a Push to Talk call, send a text message, leave a voicemail, or start a conference call - all with up to 30 users at once.

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#113347 27-Feb-2008 14:04

manhinli: t2v... ah, I can still remember that. That was a complete flop. I never got to try it though. I would wonder how the recipient would react when a robot-ish voice 'anonymously' called them.

In the UK, BT got Tom Baker of Doctor Who / Little Britain to be the voice of t2v. He's since been replaced with a more generic voice, but do a quick search on youtube for some amusing prank calls made courtesy of Mr Baker's wonderful vocals!

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