Alltel with a Nextel like 2-way?

There are cdma phones that are coming out that sport the feature. The Motorola v60p will have it and so will an upcoming samsung. Verizon is supposed to be the first CDMA carrier to have the service

 

Yes, ALLTEL is working on PTT also. I'm not sure when the service will be out though.

 

I really some of the people that tested these services for Alltel (in the Little Rock, Jacksonville and other 'select' markets) were members on the forum. Alltel is very conservative when it comes to releasing stuff. I'm sure that they will not release PTT until all the bugs are worked out.
Look at their phone selection, you can see right off how conservative they are. In their defense on that though, they cover so many rural area where digital is difficult to launch so they refuse to sell phones w/o amps or an external antenna.

 

The former CenturyTel area in Cheboygan County Michigan still has the same large dead spots that they had 10 years ago. It seems like nothing has changed. I keep hearing about 2 new planned towers but that's been for a couple years now. This is the area where I tested my new amp.

 

How is the dead spot with the amp? How is the CDMA overlay coming in MI? They are supposed to turn another leg of it on here sometime this month or next. They are also moving all of the CenturyTel towers in AR to Alltel's Little Rock switch.....WOOOHHOOOOO....No more dropping calls when you cross over into their heritage market....the Nortel switch in Louisiana never handed off w/o dropping the call...that is June 20th.

Hope things are improving there,
Brad

 

There is actually a long 8 mile dead spot on M33 north of M68 on the way to Cheboygan. Funny you should ask how coverage is with the amp, because I put it to the ultimate test last weekend.

With the amp and external antenna connected, I called my voice mail and recorded a test message as I drove through the 8 mile dead spot so that I could play it back and listen to the sound quality.

The call never droped, and there was only 1 mile where the static was bad. I could still understand what I was saying above the static, but the static was pretty loud. This is pretty good considering the fact that I would normally have "no service" without the amp and antenna.

To make a long story short, my phone had the same call quality that I remember having when using my old anolog bag phone in this same area.

This is an area where even the carriers admitt having no coverage. It's nice knowing that I could make a call in an emergency if I needed to.

CDMA seems to be coming slowly.

I definitely recomend the amp/antenna combination for rural or fringe area cellular use.

 

Re PTT -- ALLTEL tends to do literally everything VZW does, but only after VZW has worked out the bugs. So I'd say "soon, but not immediately."

-SC