Welcome to the third PHS Symposium of PHS MoU Group.

Since the launch of the public PHS service in Japan in 1995, PHS has been adopted or introduced in 16 countries, and field trial systems are under way in more than 30 countries additionally.

In Japan, though there were some decrease in the past several months, the milestone of 7 million subscribers were reached within 2 years. It was a great success compared to other mobile communication systems, and PHS has been widely recognized and has a hold as a new personal communication tool in Japanese life style.

TelecomAsia constructed the public PHS service in the Bangkok Metropolitan Area and started a trial service at the end of last year. This service, called PCT (Personal Communication Telephone), is positioned as a supplementary service to the fixed phone customers. More than 100,000 users participated in the PCT trial service. I was told that the commercial service will begin very soon.

As for the future of PHS, even in the IMT-2000 era, you should never be worried. Because among 230 MHz frequency band allocated for IMT-2000 in ITU, frequency band of 26MHz which is already assigned for PHS in Japan is secured to be continuously used for future PHS.

I am sure that more detailed explanation will be given by the speakers in this symposium. We strongly expect that PHS will become a more powerful, economical and convenient personal wireless communication tool in the near future, which can be used by all generations and all over the world.