The AM Forum

Well I guess it is more important for gaming enthuiasists than any other purpose.  Lord knows we need to download music.



Philippines May Lose 70 cm
Published on 07/20/05 at 12:39:47 EST by KC2FTN
 
 Hams in the Philippines are wondering how long it will be before they are ordered off of the 70 centimeter band. This, after that nations National Telecommunications Commission announces the inclusion of all of that bands spectrum be made available for broadband wireless networks.

The regulatory agency made the suggestion in a Memorandum titled "Frequency Band Allocations for Broadband Wireless Access." The surprise was the inclusion of 410 to 495MHz in nine bands. This includes the Amateur and Amateur Satellite spectrum including the internationally agreed to allocations.

Jose Mari Gonzalez, DU1JMG, is the Manilla based president of PARA which is the Philippines national Amateur Radio society. He says that PARA opposes both the memorandum and the potential loss of 70 centimeters. He notes that 430 to 440 MHz includes the international amateur satellite band. He says that if and when the Philippines National Telecommunications Council decides to remove 70 centimeter access from ham radio that his organization will file an official complaint to the IARU. This would likely lead to a complaint by the IARU to the International Telecommunications Union that would hopefully warn the NTC not to change the internationally agreed frequency allocations.

For its part, the Philippines National Telecommunications Council says it proposes to reallocate spectrum for broadband wireless networks in line with the thrust of the government to promote and facilitate the development of information and communications technology. Right now only about 5% of the population in The Philippines has access to the Internet, much less broadband, and this is partly due to the lack of infrastructure.

Source:A.R.N.

It was already pretty much unusable 10 years ago anyway due to it being wall-to-wall populated with illegal handhelds.  Back then there were no cellphones and the regular phones didn't work too well, so people just bought hammmy HTs so they could yap with all their friends.