Gadgetory

back when voice communication was still king phone calls weren't the only game in town some wireless carriers offered push-to-talk or a walkie talkie two-way radio like method of communication for when voice calls just wouldn't do recently AT&T rebooted its own push-to-talk offering for North America and thanks to our friends at the carrier we've got some handsets to test it out I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is your guided tour of enhanced push-to-talk on AT&T in America carriers have historically found little traction with push-to-talk the eye dentist carrier Nextel now part of Sprint Nextel gained a lot of visibility offering dispatch service to its customers at one time around 20 million people these days that number of PTT users has shrunk to below 5 million but other carriers are still trying to pick the Nextel carcass clean the most dedicated one is the nation's second largest AT&T push-to-talk is obviously still a hobby for AT&T it's not on many of the carrier's devices but the ones it is on are robust in keeping with the historically rugged nature of push-to-talk our test devices are Samsung rugby pro units they're still running Ice Cream Sandwich and they won't win any beauty awards but their LTE enabled and they're rated to milspec 810g standards of durability including water immersion they also feature a dedicated push-to-talk button right above the volume keys from the home screen pushing and holding the push-to-talk button launches the enhanced push-to-talk app the home screen is a simple affair offering access to contacts groups and favorites up top a call history list in the middle and calling and alerting options down below because this is a data based push-to-talk implementation you can also set your availability much like an instant message service or Google Voice or the iPhones Do Not Disturb feature when you want a place have push-to-talk call it's as simple as selecting someone's name from the list yes they also need to have a PTT enabled phone and pressing and holding the button to talk you're getting a lot of feedback there because these devices are right next to each other but when you're through speaking you release the button and then the other person can press and hold to reply just like that yes I'm testing these myself because no one wanted to test them with me womp womp now a lot of people ask why this is still useful when with a phone call you can have full duplex communication without the hassle of pushing a button well for one thing there's group calling ability with the touch of a button you can be communicating with a large group of people instantly PTT is also faster the set-up time is quicker than a phone call and you don't have to deal with protracted steps like leaving a voicemail and waiting for a response and all that kind of stuff you push the button you talk you're either connected or you're not the closest analogy is that it's like SMS for voice calls and since it's Network supported you don't have to be in a specific geographic region one of you can be in Florida the other one can be in Washington if you're in the United States the push-to-talk connectivity is unaffected but that's rude you say you've got a phone in your pocket all the sudden it beeps and someone's just talking talking talking without your permission well we've got the availability indicator as we mentioned before and also you can take push-to-talk calls privately on the ear they don't have to be ratted through the speakerphone and finally if the conversations going a little too long you're getting a little tired of pushing the button you can easily switch it over to an interconnect call a regular voice call through the interface so what's the downside well unlike next tells old I'd n network which was legitimate trunked dispatch radio the AT&T push-to-talk solution is an app that ties into a data connection to transmit your voice that has advantages it means the service can run on a wider swath of Android devices like the Galaxy s3 as well as the BlackBerry Bold and some specialized devices the app itself isn't designed terribly well though with a UI that takes some getting used to and there are a few rough edges here and just like any data based push-to-talk connection the service is vulnerable to occasional timeouts and if the server-side connection fails you're in trouble we ran into some problems when we tried downloading a routine update to the EPT app from the Google Play Store which momentarily broke our connection to the push-to-talk service in general it's less reliable than a dedicated dispatch solution of course with the sunset of next Li down even sprint is using data based push-to-talk so these aren't problems unique to AT&T they're just worth mentioning when it worked service was good and the voice connection was clear with typical latency of between one and two seconds very good for a data based solution that was over a TN t--'s LTE network your experience may differ over a slower connection at $5 a month on top of a voice plan or 30 a month for a push-to-talk only plan is AT&T s enhanced PTT worth the price it's definitely a stronger offering than their earlier attempt but with other highly rated push-to-talk clients on the Google Play Store like voxer and tickle most of them free it's hard to say AT&T seems the carrier most dedicated to poaching disgruntled Nextel subscribers during the ident damn those and there are some specialized features here AT&T claims interoperability with LMR and PMR radio systems so if you're a business owner with dispatch needs or a sprint expat looking for a solid carrier based push-to-talk solution AT&T has options and a vested interest in keeping you happy that alone might be worth the small monthly outlay folks that's going to do it for us who hope you enjoyed our guided tour of enhanced push-to-talk on AT&T in the United States if you have a comment please leave it on the post at pocketnow.com so we can get back to you if you liked the video give us a thumbs up here and if you don't want to miss anything follow us on twitter pocket now tweets is the official I am at captain two phones at captain the number two phones as always thank you very much for watching and we'll see you next time