Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 01:50:58 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@proponent.com>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: A New Wireless Phone From Japan
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 864, Message 12 of 15

From the {New York Times} 11/18/92.

Japan is experimenting with wireless telephones that are cheaper and
possibly closer to availability than the latest versions under
development in the United States, according to Japan's second-largest
long-distance carrier.

Dr. Sachio Semmoto, senior vice president with the DDI Corporation,
said yesterday that his company was developing a new system called
"personal handy phone."  The Japanese phones may be commercially
available as early as next year, he said.  Equivalent United States
phone systems called personal communications services may be three or
more years away from market.

Despite manufacturing most of America's cellular telephones, Japan has
had until recently a fledgling domestic market for wireless telephone
service.  High service prices have discouraged all but the corporate
customer.  There are one million cellular subscribers in Japan
compared with 10 million in the United States, which has a population
double that of Japan.

Japanese cellular phones, which can only be rented, cost the
equivalent of $100 or more a month for access charges and $1.60 for
three minutes of air time.  By contrast, DDI's personal handy phones
are expected to cost only $16.26 a month in access charges and 24
cents for three minutes of air time.

Personal handy phones would resemble American cordless telephones,
which operate on different radio frequencies from cellular.  The
Japanese phones, however, would use the same frequencies contemplated
for American personal communications services.

The handy-phone network would cost only one-hundredth as much as a
cellular network to build, and the prices for service would be sharply
lower than that for cellular, Dr. Semmoto, who has a doctorate in
electrical engineering, said.

Cellular "base stations" of radio transmitting equipment that make
cellular service possible cost as much as $3 million; stations for
personal handy phones might cost as little as $30,000.

Personal handy phones, designed to weigh about half the smallest
cellular phones, could be used only within 1,000 feet of the base
station and could not be operated in a car or on the street.

But because of common technical standards, Japanese users could
operate their handy phones from building to building.  Base stations
could be installed in homes, office buildings, supermarkets,
department stores and other buildings.

"Our concept is to attack the consumer market, rather than the
business market," Dr. Semmoto said.  "But our ultimate goal is for
this technology to spread around the world, especially to the United
States and Europe."

Dr. Semmoto is visiting United States companies to discuss the
technology so they might consider adopting it.  He said he had met
with regional Bell companies, cable-television companies and
long-distance carriers like the MCI Communications Corporation, which
recently proposed building a national network of small wireless
phones.