Directed flood of push-to-talk announce message

A system for initializing a push-to-talk call over a wireless communication network, comprising:

• a target handset configured for over the air communication in a wireless communication network;
• a plurality of base stations configured to communicate over the air with the target handset, wherein a push-to-talk announce message is broadcast to the target handset over the plurality of base stations, the plurality of base stations covering a geographic region where the target handset is expected to be located, the push-to-talk announce message originating from a calling handset currently having no established communicative links with the target handset, the push-to-talk announce message configured to establish a communicative link with the target handset,
• wherein a first base station receives an acknowledgement message from the target handset in response to the announce message;
• and
• wherein the first base station is configured to open an audio channel in response to the acknowledgement message.

A method for initializing a push-to-talk call between a calling handset and a recipient handset over a wireless communication network, comprising:

• receiving at a base station via a reverse link channel in a wireless communication network, a push-to-talk initialization request from a calling handset, the request, identifying a single recipient handset currently having no communicative links with the calling handset;
• establishing a communicative link between the calling handset and the recipient handset, including converting the reverse link channel push-to-talk initialization request to an internet protocol push-to-talk initialization request message;
• sending the internet protocol push-to-talk initialization request message to a push-to-talk server;
• creating an internet protocol push-to-talk announce message corresponding to the internet protocol push-to-talk initialization request;
• sending the internet protocol push-to-talk announce message to a plurality of base stations covering a geographic region where the recipient handset is expected to be located;
• creating at each of the plurality of base stations a control channel push-to-talk announce message addressed to the recipient handset;
• broadcasting the control channel push-to-talk announce message from the plurality of base stations;
• receiving from the recipient handset an acknowledgement message corresponding to the push-to-talk announce message at a first base station via a reverse link channel;
• and
• opening an audio channel between the calling handset and the recipient handset in response to the acknowledgement message corresponding to the push-to-talk announce message.