The UAE boasts of Burj Khalifa (Arabic: برج خليفة, “Khalifa tower”), the world’s tallest building, at Dubai. Now it has decided to be the very first country in Europe, Middle East and Africa in terms of futuristic mobile broadband rollout by combining 700Mhz and 800Mhz spectrum bands. The country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has decided to bundle the 800 MHz band plan with the lower duplexer (2 X 30 MHz) – as a baseline – of the Asia Pacific (APT) 700 MHz band. It will revolutionize affordable network deployment and benefit wider population with mobile broadband connectivity. Deputy Director General of TRA Majed Al Mesmar explains: By maximising the spectrum for mobile broadband in harmony with the growing economies of scale for both bands, the TRA decision will enable nearly global interoperability and roaming.
Cell phones double as electronic wallets in RP By Oliver Teves Associated Press Last updated 10:42am (Mla time) 09/30/2007 Philippine Daily Inquirer SAN MIGUEL, Philippines–It’s Thursday, so 18-year-old Dennis Tiangco is off to a bank to collect his weekly allowance, zapped by his mother–who’s working in Hong Kong–to his electronic wallet: his cell phone. Sauntering into a branch of GM Bank in the town of San Miguel, Dennis fills out a form, sends a text message via his phone to a bank line dedicated to the service. In a matter of seconds, the transaction is approved and the teller gives him P2,500 (US$54), minus a 1-percent fee. He doesn’t need a bank account to retrieve the money. More than 5.