The PHS resurgence is not limited to Japan. There are over two million PHS subscribers in China and we expect that this will double ever the next year. The marketing of PHS is completely different in China and Thailand compared to Japan. Instead of a mobile service it is a cordless telephone offered by fixed-line carriers. China Telecom, which is allowed to offer the service in cites with a population below two million, calls it Personal Access Service and essentially uses it as a wireless in the local loop product.
Callers pay fixed-line tariffs and can use the service throughout the city.
But unlike in Japan, these users can not roam out of their hometown. The next 60 to 70 percent of the population can afford the Personal Access System while the remainder still cannot afford telephone services. The third generation networks being proposed for increased spectrum efficiency can only be sensibly deployed in high revenue markets. Most of Asia will simply not be able to afford them. In Thailand it is the eight cannel feature of PHS that is seen as the major attraction.