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Verizon Sues Nextel For Espionage
jonknee writes "Verizon is going after Nextel for a little corporate espionage. Verizon says that Nextel got its hands on some internal prototypes of models aimed to compete with Nextel's Direct Connect technology. Verizon's service is slotted to start up anytime, and a few other carriers are expected to launch similar services."
Actually the article says Sprint PCS, not Verizon's push to talk service is expected to go live soon.
Direct Connect is great! Fast to get the person you want, it uses a queuing system to get the persons attention, you have the option of simply starting to talk (much like the god scenario in weird science), and the best thing... No one can interrupt you while you are talking to them! HA! Unfortunately, it's works both ways.
Sure they could switch over, but they would all have to get NEW phones. IDEN is unique to Nextel phones. I pay a pretty high $70 a month for my nextel phone, but I had 3000+ incoming minutes last month during PEAK usage hours and didn't pay a dime extra. Reason: I have a free-incoming plan with Nextel.
I agree about the one-way Direct Connect problem. Although, if you think about it, a two-way version is also known as a phone (and Nextel's with DC can function as speakerphones with the built in speaker). I still think it would be a nice capability to build in full-duplex into DC functionality as well.
There is one way around the waiting for someone to stop talking that I have found. At least on my I-80, whenever someone is talking to you over Direct Connect, the "Exit" option is still active on screen. If you press that, it forces a disconnect (and gives an annoying beep on the other end, analogous to the "person busy" error.) Then you can talk to them, or do whatever.
Ahh, but Verizon DOES have a global impact!
Ever hear of Vodafone?
To quote Verizon's "About Us" page:
Vodafone is the world's largest mobile operator with over 112.5m proportionate customers worldwide and equity interests in 28 countries and Partner Networks in a further 7 countries.
I can tell you first hand that Nextel would never do such a thing as this. I finished taking a company required moral ethics class via the net (class has been a requirement for employees for years now) that deals with instances EXACTLY as this one. Sure, an individual employee may have gained unauthorized access at some point, but Nextel would have fired the guy immediately and turned over any information/equipment, etc. to Verizon. There's not a chance in hell they would have used it to gain an advantage. As stated by another /.'er, they have no reason to do this; Their Direct Connect/Walkie Talkie has been perfected over 11 years and it now works from coast to coast (soon to be international as well).
So what's the reason for Verizon filing suit? They probably heard a Nextel company executive at some point say that they believe Verizon's PTT like service will not live up to Nextel's.
But here's the real reason: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030620/205239_1.html
You see, on June 20th, Nextel had multiple trademarks approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The following trade marks (TM) belong to Nextel: PTT, Push To Talk, Push Power, and Nationwide Walkie Talkie (there may be others I'm not aware of).
Now this is a REAL PROBLEM for Verizon who needs to describe their "walkie-talkie" like service somehow. They need a name for it, and a catchy one at that. Nextel had a hell of a time getting consumers to understand what "Direct Connect" is. It wasn't until switching to using the term "Walkie-Talkie" that they found it clicked immediately what the service was. Everyone knows what a walkie-talkie is.
So it is my opinion that Verizon filed suit over some bogus claim in retaliation to Nextel having their trademarks approved. If Verizon doesn't find a good name for their product and can't any decent terms to describe it (must sum up the meaning in one to three words to catch people's attention) their service will have an extremely difficult time launching. How are you going to convice consumers they should add another charge/service to their phones if you can't adequately explain what it is/does without calling it a walkie talkie, ptt or push to talk service?
Wherever you go, there you are.