While we are on the topic of Asia (and we seemed to have been for a while), a new pan-Asian roaming alliance has been established by a number of operators to allow consumers to travel from country to country and still reach home services smoothly. Called the "Asia-Pacific Mobile Alliance," the group includes Hutchison Essar, Hutchison Telecom of Hong Kong, Far EasTone of Taiwan, KT Freetel of Korea, NTT DocoMo in Japan, PT Indosat of Indonesia, and StarHub of Singapore.

According to the Economic Times of India, the aggregate user base within the alliance is about 100 million customers. The group will enable voice, video and data roaming throughout the area by later this year.

According to the companies the alliance hopes to spread to additional operators over time and help the spread of 3G technologies and services as it does.

The move is timely as Asia's economies grow and its less developed nations move rapidly into the developed world. With easier business travel and personal movement across the region, operators have done themselves a favor by making free movement of mobile services possible as well.