Personal multimedia communications services

Recent progress in communications technology is about to bring on dramatic changes in business and home life. NTT laboratories began personal multimedia communications (PMC) services experiments to achieve personalized multimedia communications services. In 1990, NTT announced the visual intelligent and personalized (VI&P) communications services plan as its service vision for the beginning of the 21st century. NTT´s phase 1 experiments based on this VI&P plan focused on N-ISDN services. The phase 2 experiments focused on creating new applications based on optical communications and ATM technology. The sudden increase in the number of cellular phones, reflects the rising demand for person-to-person communication, even for private use. The P in VI&P symbolizes this latest trend. Taking this into consideration, the phase 3 experiments concentrate on personal-use multimedia service based on wireless access by means of the personal handy phone system (PHS) and satellites. This paper describes the phase 3 experiments and the technology involved. Subjects discussed in some detail are high-speed digital data communication services using PHS terminals, personal mobility using premises intelligent network, and the nomad office using communication satellite. Possible future personal communication services are also proposed