“sXGP”: A Secure and Efficient Wireless Communication System for In-House Networks

Japanese nurse call systems have been integrated into mobile communication networks for more than two decades, enabling mobile voice communication that was effective in raising work efficiency. PHS (personal handy-phone system) was mainly used because of the safety of its weak output. However, public PHS service was terminated in March of 2003. Although in-house PHS is still available, hospitals are now searching for an appropriate mobile communication system to replace it. In this paper, we introduce and compare four candidate systems, sXGP (shared eXtended Global Platform), VoIP (Voice over IP), “local 5G”, and FMC (Fixed-Mobile Convergence). We recommend sXGP because of its ability to keep the hospital network safe from electromagnetic disturbance with and from medical devices and because it does not interfere with data communication systems. It uses the same 1.9 GHz band that was used for communication in PHS. An advantage is that no other systems in Japan use this frequency band. Another is that the transfer rate of sXGP is higher than PHS. The other three have disadvantages for use in nurse call systems and in hospital networks.