It is indeed a great pleasure for me to be here today on the occasion of the 1997 Annual General Meeting of the PHS MoU Group and the PHS Symposium. On behalf of the Post and Telegraph Department of Thailand, which is the Thai telecommunication regulator, it is my pleasure to welcome all PHS MoU Group members and participants to Bangkok and to wish every success to this Annual Meeting.
I am very delighted to learn that the MoU Group has accomplished its roles in introducing and promoting PHS on a worldwide basis by elaborating standard of PHS, promoting the common use of PHS terminals, developing the relevant services to name them but a few. I also wish to congratulate the Group in its success in increasing its members to 83 by not only inviting manufacturers, dealers and operators worldwide to join the Group as Signatory Members but also convincing telecommunication authorities and public organizations to join the Group’s activities.
As the regulator in radio communications and spectrum management, the Post and Telegraph Department has supported the implementation of PHS services which is publicly known in Thailand as Personal Cordless Telephone or PCT by allocating frequency bands 1895 - 1918.1 MHz for the operation of these services being operated by the Telephone Organization of Thailand (TOT) and its licensed private operators: TelecomASIA Corporation Public Co., Ltd. (TA) and the Fonepoint (Thailand) Company Limited.
Of the frequency allocation, the band on 1895 - 1906.1 MHz was assigned for the private PCT services. The band on 1906.1 - 1918.1 MHz was allocated for the Telepoint Service (TPS) with the Control Channel 73 at the frequencies of 1916.75 MHz and the Wireless Local Loop (WLL) system.
The public PHS services in Thailand are slightly different from that in other countries particularly Japan. In Thailand, the service will be integrated as part of a fixed line telephone network with the same subscriber number. Therefore, the service is called PCT. It is expected that PCT subscribers in Thailand will reach more than 1.5 million in the next few years.
The PCT public service being implemented in Thailand is targeted for supplementing the Wireless Local Loop (WLL) system in the Bangkok Metropolitan and also up country. The PCT service in WLL system has also been incorporated in the Project on Rural Long Distance Public Telephone service of TOT. It is anticipated that the PCT service will be expanded to the remote area of Thailand.
The Post and Telegraph Department of Thailand welcomes the positive initiations to be introduced by the PHS MoU Group on the newly developed technology and its versatile uses as far as those uses are complied with the existing domestic rules and regulations concerned.