On July 27, the preparatory group for PHS MoU held its inaugural meeting at the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) headquarters in Minato-City, Tokyo. This meeting brought together representatives from 35 businesses, such as operators and those involved in manufacturing of Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) equipment, in addition to those from four organizations invited to be special members of the PHS MoU Group. Dr. Hiroshi Ishikawa, chairman of the Technical Assembly of the Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC) and Vice President of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., and Mr. Masayoshi Wakao, Managing Director of ARIB, were selected as the preparatory group chair and vice-chair, respectively.
At this meeting, "The gist of the establishment of the preparatory group for PHS MoU" and the initial year's activity plan were approved. Also, Mr. James D. Edson, General Manager for Nippon Motorola Ltd., made a presentation containing expectations on and requests of the PHS MoU Group.

The preparatory group for PHS MoU held its inaugural meeting on July 27.

The PHS MoU Group aims to promote the international diffusion of PHS, which was developed in Japan. This group is to comprise domestic and overseas businesses, including operators and equipment manufacturers as well as those holding industrial property rights related to PHS or interested in PHS technology. It also invites as special members the type approval and standardization organizations as well as the telecommunications administrations and regulators in those countries which have adopted the PHS technology. Businesses and organizations that are to become members of this group are taking part in the newly-established preparatory group for PHS MoU. After the inaugural meeting of the preparatory group, four businesses joined anew, bringing the total number of the preparatory group's member businesses to 39 as of October 1, 1995.

Followings are planned as the activities of the PHS MoU Group.

• 1) Treatment of essential industrial property rights (IPRs)

Documentation of treatment for the essential IPRs

Window of adjustment on treatment for the essential IPRs

• 2) Internationalization of specifications for PHS network interfaces
• 3) Harmonization of type approval and interconnection test of terminals

Adjustment of type approval procedure

Adjustment of interconnection test procedure

• 4) Promotion of PHS standards and technologies

Worldwide promotion of PHS standards and technologies

Preparation and implementation of marketing strategy

• 5) Promotion of service enhancement

Enhancement of system features and standards

Summary of requirements of each member

• 6) International roaming

Promotion of international roaming

Settlement of problems regarding international roaming

• 7) Consideration of disclosure of authentication algorithm and ID assignment

Consideration of disclosure procedures

ID assignment for and management of terminals and operators

• 8) Distribution of PHS-related information

Issuance of PHS MoU Group newsletter

At the preparatory group for PHS MoU, in addition to the drafting of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) upon which the PHS MoU Group is to be founded, activities were started based upon plans for dealing with matters of utmost urgency, as follows.

Establishment of the IPR Working Group
The PHS Air Interface is specified at RCR Standard-28, which was worked out by ARIB's predecessor RCR. Seven businesses currently possess the essential IPRs required in meeting this standard. The IPR Working Group comprising these IPR holders, the Japanese standardization organizations ARIB and TTC, was established in order to discuss the international treatment of IPRs related to PHS standards.

Establishment of the Interface Working Group
One feature of PHS is the ability to use existing public switched telephone networks (PSTN) in making PHS services possible. Henceforth, in order to diffuse PHS internationally, in addition to the need to promote the openness of PHS services that are realized using existing telephone networks, the need to deal with the different conditions and requests to be found for telephone networks overseas is foreseen. Also foreseen is the need to deal with the possibility of international roaming services. Currently, 18 businesses and two organizations, TTC and ARIB, have commenced work in the Interface Working Group in order to handle such needs.
Moreover, although no working group has been established, the secretariat of the preparatory group is now preparing procedure of ID assignment by the PHS MoU Group for PHS Cell Stations (CSs) and Personal Stations (PSs).

• Fujitsu Ltd.
• L.M. Ericsson A.B.
• Mitsubishi Electric Corp.
• NEC Corp.
• Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT)
• Sony Corp.
• Toshiba Corp.

Mr. James D. Edson, Nippon Motorola, made a presentation.