The Republic of Philippines is an island nation in Southeast Asia, located in the Malay Archipelago. The nation comprises of 7,107 islands, with the total land area of about 116,000 square miles, which makes it the 72nd largest country by area. The modern people of the Philippines are mainly of Austronesian ancestry, along with good many Filipinos with Spanish, Chinese, American, and Arab ancestry. The Spanish started ruling the country in the year 1565, which lasted for three centuries, until the Philippine Revolution of 1896. In the year 1898, after the Spanish-American war, the Unites States gained possession of the Philippines. The Philippines was ruled by the Unites States for five decades.

Filipino culture has many similarities with the western countries. Most of the population in the Philippines is Roman Catholics and Filipino and English are the official languages of the country. The country became self governing in the year 1935, when Manuel QUEZON was elected President. He had the task to get the country ready for independence after a10-year transition. The Japanese took possession of the Philippines in 1942 during World War II, when the United States and the Philippines fought together from 1942 to 1945 to gain back the control. The country ultimately attained its independence on 4 July 1946. After the independence, 20-year rule of Ferdinand MARCOS ended in 1986, after a widespread popular rebellion ousted him and sent him into exile and put Corazon AQUINO as president of the country.

Corazon AQUINO went through quite a lot of coup attempts, which prevented the Philippines to return to normal political stability and economic development. During the time of the country’s consequent President, Fidel RAMOS, who was elected in 1992, political stability was somewhat restored and he made significant progress with the country’s economic reforms. The next President of Philippines, Joseph ESTRADA was elected in 1998 but was succeeded by his vice-president, Gloria MACAPAGAL-ARROYO in January 2001 for a 6-year term. Joseph ESTRADA was impeached on corruption charges.

The history of the Philippines dates back to 2500 BC, when aboriginal inhabitants arrived in the country from the Asian mainland. As from 3000 BC, wave of Indonesian and Malayan settlers came to the Philippines and settled down. Extensive trading activities were started with India, Indonesia, China, and Japan during the 14th century. .

The Philippines was first explored by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan in the year 1521. The island nation was named after Prince Philip, by a group of Spanish exploration party, some twenty one years later. Later, Prince Philip was to become Philip II of Spain. For the next 350 years, Spain retained the possession of the island nation.

The population of the Philippines was 76,498,735, by the census in the year 2000, which is an increase of 26% over the population counted in the year 1990. The Island Nation is the 14th most populous country in the world and is the third most in Southeast Asia. The people of the Philippines are mostly Malaya and the people are collectively called Filipinos. The Filipinos have their ancestral decent from Indonesia, though, through a long historical contact between the country and China, there are many from Chinese decent.

The original people of the Philippines were non-Malays, and they are known as Negritos. Today the Negritos are few in number and form a very small percentage in the population of the country. These people are mostly found in upland areas, such as, Luzon, Mindanao, Panay, and a few other islands. In the year 1971, an existence of few Tasaday people were found. These people are the previously unknown Negrito tribe and about 25 of them were found to be living in caves, like the days of the Stone Age.

Manila is the Capital of the Philippines, located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay in Luzon, and is the country’s largest island. Manila is a thriving metropolis and the population of the city is over 10 million. The metropolitan area of Manila is also known as National Capital Region (NCR), of which the city of Manila is a part. The NCR is a large metropolis and consist of 17 cities and municipalities. The population of the city itself is about 1.5 million, being the second largest populous city in the Philippines.

Manila got its name from the Tagalog word ‘nilad’, which has the name from the flowering mangrove plant that grew in abundance along the marshy shores of the bay. During the 16th century a group of Muslims settled along the banks of the Pasig River and this settlement grew into Manila. The Philippines was then under the Spanish rule, who controlled the group of islands for over three centuries from 1565 to 1898.

Davao city is the country’s melting pot of diverse cultures. It is the largest city in the world and provides wonderful shopping areas and night life along with many modern amenities. It has accessible beaches, with much supply of sea food and fruits. The city has air links to major destinations of the country and to the rest of the world. The most important of all is that the city of Davao is situated in a typhoon free area and has an all-the-year-round tropical climate, with sunshine by day and occasional rainfall at night. This makes the city an ideal place for business, leisure, agriculture and other worthwhile activities.

Cell phones have become a part of everyday like today. It has become almost a tool that we cannot do without. When mobile telephony was first introduced, cell phones were with only handful of people and only those were lucky enough to be in touch with the world. There were a few countries in the world which had mobile networks and very few in the world who could afford the luxury. Today, a cell phone has become the way of life.

During that time when you went for a visit abroad, you had no option but to use the telephone in your hotel room, to call your business associates, friends, the family back home, and booking and reserving seats at the restaurants and theaters. You were aware about the costs involved in using the hotel telephone, but there was no other way.

When cell phones became as much popular as they are today, you had taken yours along with you, when you last visited abroad. Your cell phone was on roaming. This provides you with the facility to make and receive calls from practically anywhere in the world.

Roaming provides you with the ability to automatically make and receive calls, transfer and receive data or access other services, when you are travelling outside the geographical coverage area of your home network. If you have a roaming facility, as you move from your home geographical area to another, you become a visitor to the network of that area. If you are in the same country as your home operator, you are on National Roaming. If you are visiting another country and your cell phone is on roaming, you are on International Roaming. If this roaming facility is between two different standards, it is called Inter Standard Roaming.

In providing you with roaming facility, your home service provider has entered into a commercial contract with the network operator that you are visiting and in doing so, your visiting network lets you utilise its services, based on the commercial agreement. This is the reason why you are charged at roaming costs for the calls that you make and receive while on roaming. Roaming is expensive.

There is a way you can save substantially on calls when you visit the Philippines. A pre-paid SIM card for the Philippines saves you up to 80% of your expenses on your cell phone calls. When you buy a pre-paid SIM card for the Philippines, you get a local number and all your outgoing calls are charged at local rates. All your incoming calls are free of charge and you do not pay for roaming. You do not enter into any contract with any service provider and you do not receive any bill at the end of the month.

When you buy a pre-paid SIM card for the Philippines, you get a small talk time credit along with. This enables you to use your cell phone straight away when you reach your destination in the Philippines. To top up your talk time credit, you can purchase recharge coupons or vouchers from practically any shop in the cities of that country. These coupons are available in different values and you can buy the right denomination depending upon the talk time credit that you want. Since you pre-pay for your calls, you are aware of the expense that you are incurring for your calls and in this way you are in control of the budget that you have set for the purpose. For more information on pre-paid SIM card for the Philippines, visit www.planetomni.com/FAQ_sim.shtml

A SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card is roughly of the size of a postage stamp, located in a slot behind the battery at the back of your cell phone. It is a printed circuit board module that renders your cell phone intelligent and enables you to make and receive calls, send SMS and avail many other services. If you take out your SIM card, your cell phone stops working and it is not at that time associated with your phone number. A SIM card holds your unique information, such as, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), your mobile SIM card identification, your calling plan, etc., and as you switch on your handset, the information is transmitted to the network, which checks for security and its validity before logging you in the network. Now you are ready to make your first call and activate the pre-paid SIM card for Brazil. The SIM card also holds your address book, which records the phone numbers and addresses of the persons who you call frequently. The SIM also logs your outgoing and incoming call phone numbers, along with their date and time of call. It also provides feature to lock your mobile phone as prevention against misuse. You can punch in your Personal Identification Number (PIN) on the handset keyboard for the SIM to register your password. You would be required to use this password to open your mobile phone for calling someone.

When you visit the Philippines, you would need a GSM handset, to make and receive calls. If you have a GSM cell phone, it is unlikely that it would work in the Philippines, unless you have a multiple frequency phone. Networks in the Philippines operate on
900MHz and 1800MHz GSM frequency bands, where-as, networks in the countries in North America, Canada and a few other neighbouring ones, operate on 850MHz and 1900MHz frequency bands. This difference in frequency bands does not let your GSM phone operable in the Philippines. You will need either a multi frequency cell phone or one that is compatible with the frequency bandwidth in the Philippines.

In order to facilitate the use of cell phones universally, there are three types of such phones available in the world market. The Quad-band phone complies with all GSM bandwidths and would work in any of the GSM country in the world. The Tri-band is compatible with 800MHz, 900MHz and 1800MHz frequency bands, and operates in most part of the GSM region, while the Dual-band responds to 800MHz and 1900MHz GSM frequency bands.

Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) is an open structure digital mobile telephony technology and is called the second generation (2G) system. It replaces the old analog first generation (1G) technology. GSM was developed in Europe and is in use in over 214 countries in the world. Globally, out of the total number of mobile users, GSM has 80% subscribers. GSM presently works on four frequency bands, and these are 850 MHz, 900 MHz, and 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz, which are distributed to the different regions in the world. Some of these are commonly used by certain countries. However, the networks in North America, Canada and a few other countries, including Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands, operate on the exclusive frequency bands, very rarely used in any other part of the world. The advantage in using GSM is the facility that you get in roaming, where you can talk to anyone from about any place in this planet yourself available to all who want to get in touch with you.

If you are a frequent traveller, you may consider buying a compatible cell phone which would work in the countries that you visit. If you are not so frequent a traveller, it is economical for you to rent a phone which will match the frequency bands with the networks of the country that you are visiting. For more information on buying or renting a phone, you may visit www.planetomni.com/FAQ_gsm.shtml for more details.

Whether you take your phone, buy or rent one, you must ensure that the cell phone which you are taking with you to the Philippines is SIM unlocked, for, you will not be able to use your pre-paid SIM card for the Philippines or any other SIM card for that matter, if your cell phone is SIM locked. To give an instance as to why cell phones are SIM locked, consider that you have signed a contract with a certain service provider. One of the clauses in the contract mentions that you will be required to remain with the services of that provider for a definite period of time, which is generally one year. After you sign the contract you receive a cell phone and a SIM card from the service provider. The cell phone has been given to you free from any cost. This cell phone is SIM locked and would work with only the SIM card that you have received from the service provider. This is done to ensure that you use that particular SIM card only and do not shift your services to another provider before the contract duration is over. At the end of the contract period, the service provider helps you to SIM unlock your phone, when you are at liberty to use any SIM card that you want.

It is important that you take care of two things before you take your cell phone with you on your visit to the Philippines. The first thing is make sure that the cell phone is not SIM locked and second, that it matches the network frequency bands of the Philippines.

A pre-paid SIM card for the Philippines is not only affordable but provides you with fairly large savings on your cell phone usage. The most important savings are that you pay as the locals do and all your incoming calls are free, no matter where it generates from. Further, you do not pay for roaming. By pre-paying for your calls, you are quite aware of the money that you are spending on your cell phone usage and in this way you are able to control your expenditures to remain within the budget that you have set for yourself.

Cell phone use overseas.
In 99% of the world the local cellular service standard is called GSM. We use this in the states as well. When combined with a SIM CARD (which usually goes under the battery of the phone) the phone is able to communicate and the SIM CARD also holds the telephone number and memory for pre-paid credit. Rates can be extremely low using this system. For example in 99% of all SIM CARDS incoming calls are free and calls to the states can cost a trifle. Such as, from the UK to the USA 7 cents/minute, from Israel 22 cents, from Australia 27 cents. Yes, USA Dollar cents! There are today even prepaid service providers in the USA offering rates of 10 cents per minute to call anywhere in the US to any type of phone. No contracts, no credit card checks, no bills. Pre-paid always means no minimums no contracts, no obligations. You only pay for the calls made. You’ll need an unlocked GSM tri-band or quadband UNLOCKED phone. You can buy factory unlocked phones and sim cards for more than 170 of the 193 countries on earth from http://www.planetomni.com Tel. # 800-514-2984