In what looks set to be the first trial of a Personal Communications Network service that uses Intelligent Network techniques, Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems and Motorola Inc intend to test a system that will enable users in Pittsburgh to be reached at any location using the same number. The two companies have signed a letter of intent and the trial of Motorola’s Personal Phone Service 800 System and new Personal Communicator Telephone is expected to take place in Pittsburgh later this year. The Personal Communications Service takes advantage of the wired and wireless networks already in place and provides the same set of user-defined features everywhere. Much of the feature functionality will be provided by Pennsylvania-based Bell Atlantic’s Advanced Intelligent Network capability. This combination of mobile and landline services is what makes it different from the other services that are being proposed today, which rely on one contiguous micro-cellular service. This trial will use a combination of conventionally available macro-cellular services, along with micro-cellular applied through base stations in homes, and through wireless PABXs in offices. The pocket-sized Personal Communicator phone is an integral part of the service trial. It will operate as a cordless phone in the home; as an extension of a PABX or Centrex system in the office and as a cellular phone when the user is mobile, whether as a pedestrian or in a vehicle. It comprises a portable handset and charger as well as a small personal base station which can be installed at home or in the office. The handset always seeks to operate on its personal base station first and operates as a cordless phone until the user moves from the personal base station range into the microcellular or existing macrocellular networks outside the home. At that point, the phone automatically reregisters itself with the network so that when the personal telephone number is dialled, the call is delivered to the handset regardless of where the user is located at the time. The system will use the Narrowband Advanced Mobile Phone Service, NAMPS, technique to minimise the frequency allocation impact on the existing macrosystem. NAMPS is a new high capacity, cellular call handling technique introduced by Motorola last year. The service will use existing analogue mobile services, but will take on digital services as they are implemented. Bell Atlantic will begin the introduction of digital mobile services based on Time Division Multiple Access technology later this year.
