The NTT Personal Communications Network Group and the DDI Pocket Telephone Group initiated PHS service in Tokyo and Sapporo in July 1995 with around 90,000 subscribers combined. These two groups were then joined by the Astel Group which launched its PHS service in October 1995, making a total of three service provider groups in the PHS market. At the same time, the PHS service area was extended to cover the entire country, and the subscriber base soared to 360,000 at one stroke, roughly a threefold increase over the number in September 1995.
Subsequently, the number of new subscribers continued to increase at a pace of more than 100,000 every month. Since February 1996, the subscriber base has mushroomed rapidly. Some 300,000 people signed up for PHS service in February, 500,000 in March and 500,000 in April as well. That pushed the cumulative number of subscribers above the two-million mark in just 10 months since service began. Moreover, the number reached 2,400,000 as of the end of May this year.
One reason behind this surge is that consumers are beginning to understand the inherent merits of PHS service, which provides excellent speech quality at low call rates. Another factor is that the dead areas where PHS signals were not supported initially have been reduced as a result of competition among PHS service providers to expand their service areas.
Other factors apparently contributing to this increase in subscribers include the introduction of answering phone service and the release of handsets combining PHS with a paging function. These new features are designed to compensate for the drawbacks of PHS compared with cellular phones, including limited service areas and the inability to complete calls when moving at high speed, such as when traveling on trains. The answering phone service enables a caller to leave a message with a voice mail center implemented by the PHS service provider, when a PHS user cannot be reached. With the integrated terminals that combine PHS with a paging function, the pager automatically receives an incoming call and rings when a user is outside a PHS service area.