Hutchison also launched a cordless-phone alike ni the UK, called Rabbit
Phone. This was when I was still in short trousers, though, so all I can
remember are the ads, which starred Eric Idle.
Getting back to Japan, why *is* PHS popular? 5.7m customers isn't bad. Put
another way, why did the arguments that failed to work in Europe (cheaper
smaller devices, longer battery life) work in Japan? Are there other
advantages that DECT/CT2 didn't have? Or is it just that DoCoMo wanted to
build it, so it did?
"Pointel (CT-2) will attract as many customers as GSM, and there will be 2m
GSM customers in France in 2000"
-France Telecom, 1990
I heard a story that a large part of the initial take-up for PHS was from
teenaged girls engaged in 'compensated dating'...
<snip>
>>Incidentally, PHS wasn't rejected because it competed with DECT!
>>DECT was rejected too! I've read ten-year old research reports
>>claiming that public DECT networks would have as many customers
>>as GSM (and that there'd be 22.089745 m GSM customers in Europe
>>in 2000). Guess how many there are?
>>None. Why would I buy a cordless phone when I can get a proper
>>mobile?
>
>There were two public cordless networks in Britain (Zone Phone and
>Phonepoint) in Britain for a short time in the late 1980s, but I
>think they died quickly. They used the 'CT2' protocol (pre-DECT).
>The public networks didn't allow incoming calls at all, whereas I
>understand that PHS networks do if you're lucky enough to catch
>the callee in range of a base station.
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Wed Jul 25 15:22:53 2001