PHS Internet

At last, now I have my own internet connection. However, the service subscribed for me is different from the usual internet subscriptions we know of.

I am currently connected via PHS (Personal Handy-phone System). PHS is also marketed as PAS(Personal Access System) and/or Xiaolingtong (小灵通 - China). PHS is actually a 2nd Generation (2G) data transfer technology and is gaining back popularity because of recent developments such as faster connection speeds and flat rate services provided by major operators in some Asian countries (like Japan, China, Taiwan, et al). You can check its wiki from here for more info (PHS - wiki).

Together with the company-issued laptop that had just arrived this morning, came the AIR-EDGE PRO which would be inserted into our laptop's PCMCIA slot. Instant internet access! Speaking of mobile connectivity, I can easily connect to the internet within any region in Japan. すごいね！

PHS is still far off from Japan's broadband access speed though. My PHS connection speed is 256Kbps. Testing through speedtest, the best dl/ul speed registered was 59Kbps/50Kbps (so far). PHS is basically a mobile dial-up service.

I don't know why they (boss) gave us PHS instead of broadband since even with the flat rate service, PHS is more expensive because of its mobility features. Maybe because we are going to be relocated to another apartment once we come back. I guess they also have a corporate account with Willcom, Japan's major PHS provider, since our PDAs have been also subscribed to it.

I guess with this current connection, I could only download less than I wanted, but hey at least it's free (for us at this moment)!