Heart & Soul feelH"

I would like to introduce the latest PHS service and a new series of terminals, as well as our service expected for the coming year (2001). We will start selling a new series of PHS terminals beginning in early December 2000 under the brand name feelH". Improving upon the conventional H" series, feelH" aims to offer a service fully utilizing capabilites to meet consumer expectations and to offer performance that more than matches that of cellular phones. We are sure that this service will be on par with those available from the IMT2000 service.

When we implemented a service last year (1999) called H"LINK (edgelink) that provided WAP-like (email and Internet access-enabling) services, such as high-speed handover and high-quality sound, we regained recognition that "PHS could still be active". Through consumer evaluations, we understood that that our service provided good quality for a reasonable cost and provided a mobility that more than matched that of the cellular phones.

80% of all H" users and 50% of all PHS users use mail services and Internet access. For these points, DDI-P is seen as having the biggest ratio.

There are five major features of feel H", but the most common feature for all terminals is the large color displays that are used. It is also possible to send photographic images taken using digital cameras. For the handling of sound data, MP3 files can be downloaded. Moreover, as the diffusion of content using music (call-reception melody and "karaoke" sing-alongs) is foreseen, high-quality LSIs and wide-range speakers are used. Since there has been much competition in the wireless field including cellular phones over the past year, and there have been many advertisements trumpeting that fact that so many harmonic sounds are offered, we think at this point in time that feel H" offers the most natural and quality sound.

A camera that can be attached externally to all handsets offers 65,000 colors and 100,000 pixels, with the capacity of some 10KB per shot. It is possible to take pictures of one's face as a portrait photo. Compared with conventional mail that only sent text data, transmission of mail with images and melodies will be possible from now on. With such a capacity level, the cost of transmitting such data would be about the same as sending text mail, so there is great merit in terms of tariffs and of enjoyment of service at a reasonable cost.

The downloading of feel H" MP3s was made possible by the combination of high-speed PHS downloading and reasonable tariffs. Although 64K downloading by cellular phones is possible with cdmaOne, PHS makes downloading of large volumes of data at reasonable tariffs possible.

Downloading time is as shown in Fig. 6-1 on the horizontal axis and tariffs are indicated on the vertical axis. The red line shows the tariff for PDC and the blue line shows the PHS tariff and the download time. The numbers refer to the content volume. For example, a 100B short message can be downloaded for one yen at an instant on cellular phones, with 1KB of information being handled in about a second (a few yen). This is an area where the small capacity of content can easily be downloaded in a few seconds for a few yen.
Since everything starts at 10 yen for PHS, a small amount of mail would cost 10 times more as compared to using a cellular phone. But the situation is altered dramatically when downloading large amounts of data. For example, downloading 10KB would take a cellular phone over 10 seconds (more than 10 yen) as opposed to PHS, which would take one second (10 yen). If the capacity increased to 100KB, PHS would take 10 seconds (still 10 yen) but some 100 seconds (several hundred yen) for the cellular phone.
As large content capacity is becoming the mainstream in the multimedia field, the cost-performance of PHS can be promoted. For music downloading, since a minute of music transformed to MP3 becomes about 1MB, one song (roughly four minutes) would mean a download of 4MB. This download for PHS would take from a few minutes up to 10 minutes, so it would cost about a hundred yen.
Under the current PHS infrastructure, 64kbps circuit switching is offered at 10 yen per minute, making music downloading reasonable in terms of cost. On the other, at conventional costs it would be impossible for cellular phones to offer service in this market, as it would cost a few thousand yen.
Since the size of content from next year (2001) onwards will get bigger, from 100KB to several hundred KB, such capacity can be offered by feelH". Specific examples would be camera and MD sound.

Fujitsu Ltd. from last month (November 2000) started sales of a new personal computer embedded with PHS, called LOOX. Conventional PCs only have a PSDN modem internalized, whereas the rest were attached externally, but LOOX has a PHS as well as an internal modem, so that the Internet can be used as soon as it is purchased. This shows that customers are recognizing that "for data communications and large-volume downloading via the mobile environment, PHS is best."

The graph indicates the frequency efficiency ratio for PHS, cdma2000 and other such systems. The vertical axis shows how many bits can be carried for one cell at one Hertz per bit. On the right it shows PHS now and a few years in the future, but it is much higher than for cellular phones. Since the PHS cell size is smaller than for cellular phones, the actual difference becomes even greater. Such technological background highlights that PHS is cheaper not because of discounts but because of relatively cheap tariffs in principle. Even if cellular phones go from digital to 3G, in terms of frequency efficiency ratio, the gap in price per bit would remain. Therefore, as multimedia grows, it will provide a great business opportunity for PHS.

The voice service user on average talks for about three hours per month. For PHS, since H" is operated using 32kbps coding, by sending 32K for three hours some 43MB can be downloaded. In contrast, since a variety of coding is used for cellular phones, the average is some 5kbps coding and a three-hour conversation equals a monthly download of some 7MB.
According to Internet service providers, the download amount of flat-rate users each year is increasing, but is now about 30 to 40MB. Therefore, if it is assumed that a full packet service is implemented, the network capacity required for one voice user via PHS would be larger than the amount needed by a flat-rate Internet user for now. Thus, as data communication users grow more and more, PHS capacity would increase, and inversely the grounds for lower tariffs would swell.
For a cellular phone voice user to fully utilize the Internet, the required network capacity would need to jump by four to six times. Therefore, unless the frequency efficiency ratio changes, the customer usability would fall to one-fourth to one-sixth, and the tariffs would need to rise four to six times. So for provision of very large-capacity service, it is better to use PHS.

Next year (2001) packet service is scheduled to be introduced. The frequency efficiency ratio compared with circuit switching is high, and is a service very conducive to Internet use. Using this would be good mainly for application such as AO/DI for Internet browsing. Since Internet browsing entails more looking compared with downloading time, Internet resources are not being used at all during the looking process. Thus, for this service the said application's feature can be used to automatically switch to packet switching while not downloading, when it is not looking at the HP.
On the other hand, for web page downloading, an immediate circuit switching-60 will enable efficient network use. If such efficient network resource use can be realized, tariffs would become highly attractive to customers.

Although there will be a time lag, a higher speed service that bundles several packet protocols is currently on the drawing board. Since PHS can use four channels automatically on a wireless unit, four times 32K means 128K, and if these could be bundled by fours, the wireless unit could offer a speed of 512K. Although R&D is still ongoing at this very moment to investigate how fast it can become, it is hoped that at least 128K will be offered at an early stage. Moreover, after 2003, a PHS system realizing a very high speed of 1MB can be foreseen.

Turning PHS into system components:
PHS is a very low powered system, as is well known. For data communications, a PCM CIA card with an embedded wireless unit has been available for two years, but a compact flash sized unit was put on sale by NTT DoCoMo just last year (2000). In the future, the size is seen as falling into the category of smart media or memory cards (memory sticks, SD cards, MMC cards, etc.).
When this happens, PHS will no longer need to be the size of phone units. If needed, PHS could be imbedded into watches or digital cameras. There is a need to buy cellular or PHS phone terminals now, but in the future PHS could become a small device that could be combined with the PDA of choice: if carried in one hand the PDA would be called a phone, if larger it would be called a PDA, perhaps. If held in both hands it could be called a personal computer. The fact is that anything could become a PHS phone unit, made possible by the low power consumption feature of the microcell system known as PHS.

Herewith is introduced the activities to improve the PHS network quality. PHS is a microcell system, so a neat network configuration (cell delineations formed neatly) like cellular networks is not possible. What the customer wants is a network that can be used anytime, anywhere whether inside the home or a building or on platforms underground, even in resort areas. PHS is aiming to establish such a network, but since the cell size is small, various "uncovered holes" are to be found minutely all over the area. If these can be found, a very low cost cell station can be used to cover the hole, but unfortunately it is difficult to find such holes.
Therefore, unless a new network management method is introduced, realization of a network that can be used anywhere easily would be difficult. Our company has a specialized team of several tens of people that has been working to find the solution to this over the past several years, working to improve network quality day and night.
The basic concept is to cover the regular life areas, in the home, at the workplace and the means of transportation (roads or trains). So to have the radio wave reach anywhere from Monday through Friday, and on weekends, cover nearby shopping malls, and urban leisure facilities such as Disneyland. Furthermore, in winter, the ski slopes and, in summer, the beach and other far away resort areas as well as roads and trains connecting these would be necessary. All fields need not to be covered, but coverage of main areas visited by urban dwellers is the main policy today. A marketing plan linked to this is aimed to improve customer satisfaction.

Introduction of a computer system and maintenance every month of the network in several tens of fine items is being conducted. Looking at the parameters, increasing antenna numbers in bad quality locations and tuning network control parameters are being done.

For example, in cases where there is interference in a high-rise or ski slopes across a mountain, we cover those locations by directing individual antennas or using repeater systems. In rural areas, we have introduced high-power stations that are proven to cover a radius of 5km. Now, PHS can become a system for covering such areas.
Next year, our target is to achieve a transmission speed of 500kbps, resulting in easy-to-use multimedia services within a reasonable price range.