I'm sorry, but I think an open line is better than "direct connect", anyway. With the walkie talkies,, you still have to go through the steps of dialing the number, anyway. Then, only one of you is speaking at a time. If you miss something, you can't just say "what", you have to wait for their entire dialogue to complete. You have that annoying "bleep blip" that RINGS OUT in restaurants or wherever you're at at the time (I'm so sick of hearing). Also, I do NOT want to be interrupted while speaking to a customer, doing a sale, or whatever the case by someone BEEPING in and blaring out "Hello", or "Are you there?". A quiet ring or vibrate that you can simply bypass suffices well. The one on one continuous line works better for us. If need be, I can set the phone down and use the speakerphone (nice option). Friends of mine have Nextel. One friend has 12 of them for his business, and that's all he does is drop calls while trying to conduct business. I'm sorry, but I would find that pretty frustrating as a customer OR a business owner. It is an ongoing joke that we now call them "Nextimes". If you can't complete your conversation or conduct business in this call, maybe you can do it "Nextime".
I have Verizon and have never had a lick of trouble. The only dropped calls I get are when I'm speaking to my friend with Nextel. Like I said before, the two-way? Don't need it. I just don't see the true advantage of it. He uses it while out plowing and such, but what's the difference? It stays on hold for a bit, which I could see as an advantage, but then it resets, so you still have to redial the number or code to use the two way. If it just stayed on two way and didn't reset until you reset it or got another call, I think that would be better. Put it this way, if all the phones and companies only had a two way feature, and suddenly someone came out with a "continuous open line" (normal phone), that would be like the best thing since sliced bread. It's more gimmick than function.