News Bites From APACNews Bites From APAC

3:00 PM -- Here are a few news snippets from Asia/Pacific that caught my eye today.

The service development team at Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) won't be happy at the moment. The carrier just launched an extension to its fixed telephony service, only to have it banned by the regulator, according to the Philippines Business Mirror.

The service works through a SIM card assigned to the fixed account. The SIM can be slotted into any unlocked handset and allows the subscriber to make free calls to the local area associated with the fixed subscription from anywhere in the country. The service has apparently been banned for contravening interconnect regulations. So much for innovative service creation!

PLDT isn't the only Philippine integrated services operator in the news today. Digitel (or Digital Telecommunications Phils., as it's known to its parents), has denied claims it's once again the target of an acquisition bid. Check out the details in this Business Mirror story.

Over in China, Alibaba.com Hong Kong Ltd. , the country's answer to eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) and Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) rolled into one, has invested in UCWEB, a Chinese mobile browser developer. It's a small investment that may indicate bigger things to come for the e-commerce giant, which sees mobile as a big part of its future. ChinaTechNews has the full story.

— Catherine Haslam, Asia Editor, Light Reading