Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and Matsushita Communication Industrial Co jointly developed a wireless communications card for use with a Personal Handy Phone – the Japanese name for the Telepoint mobile phone concept. The card can transmit speech, data and text at 32Kbps – the first of its kind to do so. The pair say that plans to market the product depend on market reaction to the portable digital phones released for sale from this spring (Matsushita Communication will release a series of digital cordless phones from April 15). The wireless communications card supports the JEIDA standard. The total system consists of the card, a computer network and and devices that support ISDN. Two-way communication is possible since data and text can be carried on the part of the band not used for speech. The system will be tested for use in public network services.
