Push to talk now available for Optus mobile

By on 13 April 2005

Optus has launched its push to talk mobile service for Australian consumers. Aiming squarely at the youth market, the service will cost 95c a day for casual use or AU$14.95 per month on a plan.

The push to talk service will allow users with compatible mobile phones to instantaneously chat with up to five other people at once at the push of a button - just like a walkie talkie. The service will work across Optus' entire GSM network, which it claims covers 96 percent of the Australian population. Optus will also offer a broadcast SMS service to a push to talk group starting from May.

The Optus service is currently available for the Nokia 6020, 6170, 5140 and 7270 handsets (which have a dedicated push to talk button), and the Nokia 6600, 7610, 6670 and 6630 (after a PTT client is downloaded to the phone). These push to talk-capable handsets also operate as normal mobile phones for calling, SMS,MMS and Optus Zoo services. The Nokia 6020 and 6170 are available for AU$0 upfront on the 24 month yes 35 plan. Optus push to talk is available on selected Business Edge, yesBusiness, PTTyes plans and Corporate Flat Chat plans.

For casual users, the service is available on a daily rate of 95c which is only charged on days the service is used. For more regular users, the service is available on a monthly plan rate which includes 30 free SMS. As a special introductory offer this monthly plan rate will be AU$9.95 available to customers who sign up before 30 June 2005. From then, the standard monthly plan rate will be AU$14.95.

Telstra launched its push to talk service last year, which operates across both its GSM and CDMA networks. Telstra supports one phone each for GSM (Nokia 5140) and CDMA (Motorola T300P), with its casual rate 2c per second or AU$50 per month on a plan.

Bear in mind, however, that just like the early days of SMS there is no interoperability between push to talk carriers at the moment. This means Optus customers will not be able to use the push to talk service with Telstra users, and vice versa.

Topics: telstra, nokia, to, optus, talk, push, optu, service, plan, rate

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Comments (6)

  • tony commented on 08/10/2008 20:34 Report abuse

    how do you use it?

  • yo commented on 13/11/2007 01:10 Report abuse

    n95 has it!!!!!!

  • jm1234567890@fastmail.fm commented on 13/06/2006 11:52 Report abuse

    All series 60 phones support PTT now

  • sczepo commented on 29/06/2005 19:48 Report abuse

    You May want to rewrite this artical as the nokia 6670 is not a push to talk hand set.

  • coolguy commented on 16/06/2005 00:25 Report abuse

    Push to talk can save you a lot of money on calls. Ive used it on Optus and its great. Basically you can push a button on the side of your phone like a good old walky talky and talk to a person or group of friends. Your paying 95c per day for hours of talk. There is a fair use policy but you would need to be using it non stop for work or for many hours out with friends to reach it. I use it on the optus $49 CAP which gives me 230 bucks of calls plus included is Push to talk.

  • john commented on 03/05/2005 22:29 Report abuse

    im confused - does this mean we only pay 95c a day and we can use the push to talk and talk for as much as we like? or do we still get charged call costs?

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