COMMUNICASIA: OMA finalizes PoC standard

SINGAPORE--The Open Mobile Alliance today said it has given its final approval to the push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) specification after a year of interoperability testing, opening the way for vendors to begin producing standardized equipment for the first time.

The OMA announced the specification last May after which equipment matching the specs went through six interoperability “TestFests.” While several vendors have already been producing commercial proprietary equipment that closely follows the OMA’s evolving specification, OMA chairman Jari Alvinen said the final specification now insures that all PoC equipment will meet critical guidelines and more significantly that the each vendor’s equipment is inter-compatible.

“Operators think globally now,” Alvinen said. “They want to deploy a service that is globally accepted and one that that will give them a wider choice of vendors.”

Many operators like Sonim and Nokia have been vocal supporters of the standard and are expected to release PoC compliant gear immediately. Other push-to-talk vendors like Kodiak Networks and Motorola have been tackling the market with proprietary gear, much of which offers technical advantages over the standard, but is not interoperable with other vendor’s equipment.

Alvinen added that the OMA is now working on the specification for PoC 2.0, or Push-to-X, which will enable multimedia push services over the same SIP-based IP channel.