What Is Push-to-Talk (PTT)?

Did you know that Push To Talk (PTT) is one of the oldest types of telecommunications? Police use it, air traffic controllers and even some cellular technologies (e.g., iDEN). Push To Talk (PTT) is a method of telecommunications that usually uses a half-duplex system. As the name implies, Push To Talk (PTT) requires the person talking to press a button for the other party at the other end of the line to hear him. Essential PTT uses half duplex, only one person can talk at a time. Police radios, air traffic controller telecommunications systems and even cellular technologies (e.g., iDEN) employ Push Talk. PTT has a unique way of communicating. PTT users share bidirectionally but not simultaneously during voice transmission, i.e., callers take turns speaking and listening via push-button switching. It means that when you are talking on PTT, the other person only hears you, and you can only hear them when they talk. While this may sound like it would be confusing, it makes sense because PTT users don't have to wait in line to speak their point—they press a button when they're ready! If you're not familiar with PTT, it stands for push-to-talk. It's a communication type where you can directly connect to another person by pushing a button on your radio. Since the 1920s, PTT has been used by police officers and first responders to communicate with others while they are on the road. The newer version of PTT systems is called 3G digital PTT, which uses voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) for 3G digital PTT. Sometimes you need to be able to talk to someone, but you don't want everyone in the room to hear it. You want them to listen to your voice or maybe background noise. It is what makes PTT Push to talk such an important tool.