What is Push-To-Talk over IP?

If you run parks staff, security officers, or maintenance crews, you have probably tried every workaround going. Phone trees. A WhatsApp group someone forgot to mute. Cheap radios that do not cover the far car park. PTT over IP is the middle ground: group voice that behaves like radio, carried over the mobile data your phones already have.

Pick a talkgroup, press the button, speak, release. Everyone on that channel hears you. While someone is talking, the channel shows busy. When the air is clear, it shows idle. Operationally it should feel familiar. The transport is different. Audio runs over IP, so you are not renting trunked airtime or buying another handset every time headcount ticks up.

How it actually works day to day

A talkgroup is just a channel, the same idea as a radio channel but created and managed in software instead of programmed onto a handset. Supervisors set up groups for however teams actually work: a route, a site, a shift, a client contract. Members join the groups they need and nothing else. When someone presses to talk, everyone in that group hears it, and the dashboard shows the channel as busy until they release.

The difference from a radio system shows up in what surrounds the voice. Because everything runs through a web dashboard, talkgroup status, who is online, and where people were last seen all live on the same screen a supervisor is already looking at. On a traditional radio estate, that picture usually lives in someone's head, or gets rebuilt from memory after the fact.

What the dispatch screen adds

Voice alone is rarely enough. Supervisors want to know who is online, who was last seen where, and what job someone is supposed to be on. That is where a web dashboard earns its keep.

On RevoNet, dispatch opens one screen for talkgroup activity and a map with user markers. You create incidents, assign them, close them, and read the timeline later. Notes stay on the job instead of disappearing three scrolls up a chat. The map itself runs on OpenStreetMap, so there is no separate mapping licence to negotiate before you can see where your team is.

What rollout actually looks like

Most teams do not start by ordering hardware. They start on phones staff already carry. An admin creates accounts, sets up talkgroups that match how the team already works, and pairs each phone through the tenant console. A supervisor and one or two field users run a real shift on the free tier before anyone commits budget to a wider rollout. If it holds up, adding more users and moving to Pro pricing is a settings change, not a procurement process.

Dedicated Android PoC hardware pairs through the same admin console later, if a team decides phones are not rugged enough for the environment. There is no separate onboarding path to learn twice, which matters if you plan to mix phones and dedicated radios across a team.

Who tends to try it first

Council field teams often put a supervisor and one crew on the free tier and see whether anyone actually opens the map on a busy Saturday. Security firms like a monthly line item they can multiply by site instead of another hire quote. SAR volunteers want PTT discipline without issuing a dedicated radio to everyone on the first call-out. Facilities and event teams tend to arrive already frustrated with a CAFM tool or a WhatsApp group that buries the one message that mattered.

When it is the wrong tool

Remote hills with no data signal still belong to RF radio you have surveyed. If your team only needs text and everyone has solid LTE, a messaging app might be enough. PTT over IP wins when you want radio-like voice and a map in the same product, and your team works somewhere mobile data reasonably reaches. Test on the actual routes your crews cover before ruling anything out, since coverage varies more within a borough than most people expect.

Common questions

Need special phones? Standard Android smartphones work. Android PoC radios pair through the admin console when you are ready for dedicated hardware.

How much data does it use? Nowhere near video streaming. It depends how long people hold the button and how often GPS reports back to the map.

Can I try it without a sales call? Register at app.revonet.co.uk. Two users, full features, free, and you can start a shift the same day.

Is it secure? Each organisation is a separate tenant, so your talkgroups, incidents, and logs never mix with anyone else's. See features for roles and audit logging.

Does it replace radio completely? Not necessarily on day one. Plenty of teams run PTT over IP alongside existing radio during a transition, and drop hired handsets once coverage and habits are proven. See our comparison of PTT over IP and traditional two-way radio for a fuller breakdown.

If you are still deciding whether this fits your team, the fastest way to find out is a two-user pilot rather than a demo call. Run it on a normal shift, not a showcase one, and see whether supervisors actually reach for the map.