PLOT THICKENS AS PUSH-TO-TALK READIES FOR NATIONWIDE DEBUT

Though it remains to be seen when Nextel Communications' pre-eminency over the push-to-talk market will be tested by other major mobile operators, plenty of marketing canon fire is being exchanged in the interim.

While Verizon Wireless recently filed a lawsuit charging Nextel with corporate espionage in the theft of two prototype walkie-talkie phones, Nextel has been steeling its resistance. From its recent penchant for reminding everyone it has trademarked “push-to-talk” to its faster-than-expected national expansion of Direct Connect, the enterprise-focused carrier is refusing to rest on its laurels.

The Verizon lawsuit, filed in federal court, claims Nextel acquired trial handsets, along with confidential performance data, and tried to use it to discredit Verizon's service. A Verizon executive told Telephony the day of the filing that Nextel's alleged action went beyond “healthy competition.” Nextel said it was “baffled” by the charges.

Most recently, amid several TV appearances by Nextel CEO Tim Donahue in which he charged that would-be competitors won't match Nextel's sub-second call setup, the carrier announced that it is moving faster than expected in deploying Nationwide Direct Connect and will make the capability available in all its markets this month.

Nextel started deployment of the national push-to-talk capability in early June, with the expectation of availability in all markets sometime in August, said My-Chau Nguyen, vice president of segment marketing at Nextel.

“As we started deploying it and testing it, we were meeting our expectations for service quality more quickly than expected,” she said. “As it became available in a few cities, our customers loved it, so we decided to move up our target date. As of last week, Nationwide Direct Connect was available to about 85% of the 12 million customers served by Nextel and affiliate Nextel Partners.

Nextel's top requirement for the service is keeping call setup under one second, Nguyen said. “In going nationwide, we knew we had to keep this as our differentiator, and we knew it was the benchmark others would be measured by,” she said.

Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS and AT&T Wireless are all planning push-to-talk offerings. So far, broad industry speculation has suggested Verizon may launch its service within weeks.

Verizon said last week that its only intention is to have the walkie-talkie capability commercially available by the end of this year. “We have seen the rumors and the speculative comments about when we will launch and where, but they are not our comments,” a company spokeswoman said.