On December 14, 2000, the 10th PHS MoU Group General Meeting was held in Tokyo, with about 70 members from the People's Republic of China, Japan, Taiwan and the U.S. among others attending.

10th PHS MoU Group General Meeting

Mr. Hideaki Ishihara, Director-General, Telecommunications Bureau, Japan's MPT, gave a speech as a guest.
Mr. Nobuhiro Horisaki, Chairperson of the PHS MoU Group, presided over the general meeting. He introduced a new signatory member, ZTE Corp. of China. ZTE is one of 520 key state-owned enterprises, which develops and manufactures communications equipment including PHS equipment, switching systems, access network-related and transmission systems.

Activity reports

Mr. Masaaki Hirose, Secretary-General, reported on the group's FY 2000 first half activities and that Mr. Nobuhiro Horisaki was elected as the third Chairperson of the PHS MoU Group while Mr. Masayoshi Wakao and Mr. Sam Endy were named Vice-Chairpersons by voting mail.
Mr. Mitsuaki Ishikura, Acting Chair of the Business Working Group (BWG), delivered an activity report on BWG including study results of the need for technical information provision on eight PHS supplementary services. Mr. Takao Kashiwamura, Chair of the Technical Working Group (TWG), reported that TWG issued five Technical Information documents (TIs) on four PHS supplementary services. Mr. Fumio Uno, Chairperson of the Promotion Working Group (PWG), presented an outline of public relations activities, including the PHS MoU website (http://www. phsmou.org) and the PHS MoU News. Finally, Mr. Mitsuaki Ishikura, Chairperson of the Next-Generation PHS Study WG (NWG), explained their Study Report "PHS Evolution 2001" (provisional version), which contains concepts and services for the next-generation PHS.

Guest speeches [excerpts]

Mr. Hideaki Ishihara, Director-General, Telecommunications Bureau, Japan's MPT

As regards PHS diffusion trends overseas, progresses are seen in fixed wireless access systems in rural areas and mobile communications systems. I've heard that a commercial mobile communications service with 400,000 terminals, for example, has been in operation in Thailand since November 1999; recently, a carrier obtained a mobile communications business license to be launched in March 2001 in Taiwan. As exemplified by those deployments overseas, it can be said that stages are advancing from awareness and promotion of PHS system to full-scale operations and practical introduction in recent years.
On the other hand, PHS usage trends in Japan show that shares of data communications in all traffic occupy more than a half and the ratio has been increasing day by day. This would indicate that PHS's suitability for data communications, including Internet mobile computing, leads to widespread use of PHS.
In addition to the improvement of regulatory frameworks toward the advancement of PHS, the introduction of seamless handover in 1999, the adoption of adaptive array antenna technologies and the increase in cell station antenna power brought about improved services, which are welcomed by users. I think that the increased popularity of PHS is a result of those efforts. Need for mobile computing will increase following the expansion in Internet access.
In order to meet the needs for Internet access using PHS terminals, MPT in June 2000 inquired of the Telecommunications Technology Council about the further advancement of PHS. In response to the inquiry, the council has been deliberating on 1) advancement of services including higher-speed transmission; 2) measures for advancing PHS including compatibility with the current PHS system in order to realize higher-speed transmission; and 3) time schedule for the introduction. I hope that those measures and policies will help further diffusion and development of PHS.

PHS Seminar and new product display

After the closing of the General Meeting, the PHS Seminar was held. At the seminar, the following three speeches were made. NTT DoCoMo, Inc., DDI Pocket, Inc. and Tokyo Telecommunication Network Co., Inc. displayed their latest products that were introduced during the presentations.

Latest PHS new services of NTT DoCoMo

by Dr. Kuniaki Naoi, Manager, Mobile Multimedia Business Dept., and Ms. Shigemi Suzuki, Assistant Manager, NTT DoCoMo, Inc.

Two services were introduced. One was the music provision service using PHS 64kbps data communications ("Mobile Media Distribution" service: MMD) for obtaining such information as music and concert information from a content provider by downloading any time anywhere (see PHS MoU News No. 28). The other was the moving picture provision service also using PHS 64kbps data communications, "M-Stage visual," which enables streaming or downloading of a variety of content like news, sports and entertainment information such as music and movie (from 47 channels with over 130 programs, current as of December 8, 2000) offering the world's first such service through use of wireless MPEG4 (adopted for use with IMT-2000).

Latest PHS new services of DDI Pocket : Heart & Soul feel H"

by Mr. Yoshiki Chika, General Manager of Engineering Planning Dept., DDI Pocket, Inc.

In the presentation, feel H" (pronounce feel edge) service was introduced. Just by attaching the digital camera unit "Treva," users can easily take pictures, enjoy the picture on the feel H" color monitor and send the picture as an attached file. Also, the feel H" is equipped with a dedicated chip (which produces 100 real sampling PCM sound tones, 12 codes) and a wide-range speaker. The feel H" is compatible with the DDI Pocket's music downloading service "Sound Market." Users of this service can try their favorite songs by using MMD Service-enabled PHS terminals and can purchase the songs by downloading them. The feel H" can play the songs downloaded with sound quality comparable to that of CD (see PHS MoU News No. 30). Moreover, development and introduction schedule for such services as packet-communications service, AO/DI (Always On /Dynamic ISDN) service and high-speed data communications at 128kbps and 512kbps were introduced.

The Second Step of PHS

by Mr. Masumi Yamaguchi, General Manager of Overseas Sales Div., Kyocera Corp.

The fact that the introduction of a wireless local telephone network as a second local network using PHS (called Xiao Ling Tong in Chinese) is being promoted in small- and mid-sized cities of the People's Republic of China was introduced. As opposed to the first local network (fixed network), a lower introduction cost and provision of mobility within a specified area are required of the second local network. In particular, since a lower communications charge compared with GSM or cdmaOne mobile communications service is required, this service is provided at the same charge as public switched telephone network (PSTN). Also, by cell station (CS) siting, it becomes possible to effectively cover a wide area at lower cost with high quality of speech, through effective installation of 500mW and 20mW CSs and through adoption of adaptive array antenna technology for CSs.