Nextel users have been using push-to-talk services for a very long time. We have all heard the familiar ping a connection makes. For those of you who have been in a cave, push-to-talk is the two-way radio feature.

On a mobile phone, push-to-talk allows subscribers to use their phone as a walkie-talkie with unlimited range. A typical push-to-talk connection connects almost instantly and a significant advantage is the ability for a single person to reach an active talk group with a single push of a button press. Users do not need to make several telephone calls to coordinate with a group.

This is a big help at construction sites or areas where a lot of communications is necessary, such as first responders. Push-to-talk basically provides half-duplex communications. That means that while one person is holding the button they are transmitting. While they are transmitting, they cannot receive any messages. This makes for quick multi-person communications.

While this is a feature, the problem is that Sprint (News - Alert) is shutting down the Nextel network very soon. The reason for this is that the Nextel network does not support high-speed data traffic. It’s like putting an old horse out to pasture. It worked hard in its day, but now it is slow and old.

Today, June 10, 2013, AT&T (News - Alert) announced that it would be adding the walkie-talkie like feature as an application for the iPhone. The market choice is AT&T’s corporate customers. This push-to-talk system will allow one user to connect to as many as 250 people with the push of one button.

In December of last year, AT&T launched its Enhanced push-to-talk service. At that time it was only available on three devices. Since the service was designed to be used in the field, AT&T only focused on rugged devices for the first run. The iPhone (News - Alert) takes its place among these devices.

Due to the fact that Sprint is shutting down the Nextel network this summer, it is trying to get as many Nextel users to switch to Sprint phones with push-to-talk capabilities. Unfortunately, it has been competing with AT&T and Verizon (News - Alert) who also offer push-to-talk capabilities.

The AT&T push-to-talk function will not simply be an app that can be downloaded and used immediately. AT&T said that it will have to work with its corporate customers to correctly integrate it into their service.