The Annual PHS MoU Group General Meeting and the 2nd Symposium in Bangkok on July 11, 1997



The Annual 1997 PHS MoU Group General Meeting and the 2nd PHS Symposium were held on July 11th at the Central Plaza Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand where the first public PHS service outside Japan will start this coming October.


Dr. Hiroshi Ishikawa, Chairman of the Group, presided the Meeting which 144 peoples from 51 organizations attended. Invited from Telecommunication Authorities were Mr. Sethapom Cusrpituck, Deputy Director General of Post and Telegraph Department (PTD) Thailand, Mr. Grant Symons, Executive Manager of Australian Communications Authority, Mr. Ling Keok Tong, Assistant Director of Telecommunication Authority of Singapore (TAS), Mr. Shunsuke Kodama, Director of Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) Japan, Mr. Houmphant Intharath, Deputy Director General of Department of Post and Telecom Lao, and Mr. Azzedaine Mansouri, Director General of Office National des Postes et Telecommunication Morocco. Mr. Richard Midget, General Manager of Hongkong Telecom CSL and Deputy Chairman of GSM MoU Association also attended as an observer.


Following the opening speech of Dr. Ishikawa, Dr. Sribhumi Sukhanetr, President of the Telecommunications Association of Thailand (TCT) delivered a welcome speech of the host country. Mr. Sethaporn Custripituck, Deputy Director of PTD and Mr. Shunsuke Kodama, Director of MPT delivered congratulatory speeches representing the invited telecommunications authorities.
The following eight companies were welcomed to the Group as the Signatory Members, and 13 organizations were approved as the Observer Members (PHS MoU Group now has a total of 83 members);

\ ADC Wireless Systems, USA
\ DSC Communications, USA
\ DST Communication Sendirian Berhad (DSTCom), Brunei
\ Rockwell Semiconductor Systems, USA
\ Thai Telephone & Telecommunication Public Company Limited (TT&T), Thailand
\ UTStarcom Inc., USA
\ SJ Company, Japan
\ Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co.. KG, Germany

The activity of the Group in Jan. - June 1997, the activity plan and the budget for the fiscal year 1997, the proposed PHS MoU Technical Specifications and the PHS ID application procedure for private home use CS were approved as per proposed. Two Working Groups (WG), Business WG and Promotion WG, were approved to be newly established in order to enforce the organization for promoting the introduction of PHS. Accordingly, Fig.-1 is the new organization of PHS MoU Group. The Meeting was closed with the confirmation to make another progress toward the achievement of the Group’s objective through the cooperation of all of the Members.

The 2nd PHS Symposium

The 2nd PHS Symposium, which was held in association with the Telecommunications Association of Thailand (TCT), followed the General Meeting. As many as 486 people, much more than initially expected, participated in the Symposium. Dr. Kosal Petchsuwam, Secretary General of TCT made an opening welcome speech. Mr. Brendan McManus, Chairman of Australian PHS Forum, moderated the Symposium. Following the keynote address of Mr. Andy Gent, Vice Chairman of the Group, the experts of the Group presented about the latest information on PHS; “Latest version of PHS MoU Technical Specifications” by Mr. T. Kashiwamura, “PHS/GSM dual-mode services” by Mr. M. Ishikura, “High speed data transmission services of PHS” by Dr. T. Tanaka and “PHS WLL System” by Mr. T. Suzuki.
As to deployment of PHS, Mr. Surapon Kiattiyassakun, Vice President of TelecomASIA in Thailand, Mr. Sammy K F Tse, General Manager of Hongkong Telecom in Hong Kong, Mr. Philips Kembaren, Director of PRESERO in Indonesia, Mr. Jonathan Cohen, Vice President of UTStarcom in USA and Mr. Brendan Mcmanus of Australian PHS Forum presented their deployment situations.
The deployment situation in Japan was presented by the representatives of three PHS operators; Mr. Y. Iwamoto, Managing Director of ASTEL Tokyo, Mr. K. Oida, Senior Executive Vice President of NTT Central Personal and Mr. T. Kusunoki, Executive Vice President of DDI Tokyo Pocket.
Mr. M. Wakao, Vice Chairman of the Group, made a closing thanks speech and Mr. McManus, moderator, closed the Symposium with the proposal to challenge the target to double the figures by the next Annual Meeting, such as to expand to 50 countries where PHS is adopted or under trial, to obtain 15 million PHS subscribers, and so on.

PHS related services and products were exhibited by 25 exhibitors of the Group. TelecomASIA demonstrated its new public PHS service, Personal Communication Telephone (PCT) or One Number Concept. Other exhibitors displayed and demonstrated the latest new models of PHS phones, WLL systems, software, services, etc., which attracted the attentions of the participants.

Speeches From the Annual General Meeting