Multimedia mobile terminal “P-link Station” for TDMA systems

Sharing a single pay channel is one way of connecting many terminals to a public network at low cost. To establish mobile multimedia communications through channel sharing, this paper introduces a small device for TDMA systems. It consists of just one radio module and is intended for the Personal Handy Phone System (PHS) in Japan. It has been put to in service under the name of “P-link Station (PLS)”. Since PLS supports private and public PHS systems, a user who has several PHS terminals can connect these terminals to a public PHS network using just the one phone-number given to the PLS by the common PHS carrier. The PLS works with existing PHS terminals and cell stations because it is based upon the standard protocol. It supports channel speeds of up to 64 kbit/s and uses the relay technique to realize handover. We describe the new functions offered by the PLS and the new techniques employed