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President Ma Proposes Plan to Speed Infrastructural Building for Taiwan's 4G Network

2014/09/09 | By Ken Liu

At a meeting recently held to address the outlook for Taiwan's 4G telecom sector, Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jou said his administration will accelerate construction of 4G infrastructure on the island to target putting 10 million users on the speediest wireless mobile service in 2016-2017.

The government looks to building infrastructure to enable telecoms to cover 90% of Taiwan's population of 23 million with their wireless networks.

President Ma said that 4G infrastructure is an integral part of his administration's “Golden 10-Year Project”, which envisions eight goals to build vigorous economy, clean and efficient government, just society,  sustainable environment, comprehensive infrastructure, and peaceful relations between Taiwan and China.

Ma said that 4G has arisen due to briskly growing demand for more mobile bandwidths when cloud-based service, big data, and digital convergence are becoming trends, with the government to free up 2.6GHz band, bringing the total available to 640MHz by 2018, then by 2020 Taiwan will need  1,000MHz to provide high-speed mobile services.

Rich Tsai, chairman of Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd., a major telecom in Taiwan, said the company is Taiwan's first to provide 4G services and will do its best to meet governmental goals. He noted that 4G is not just a new technology but is also new platform for digital convergence because service providers will put audio and video content on the Internet to provide versatile services.

Minister without Portfolio B.H. Chiang said that 4G network can facilitate industrial upgrade, and development of intelligent city and traffic, and e-commerce, and that Taiwan's Cabinet will spend NT$15 billion (US$500 million) to build the island's 4G industry, with its first step to introduce the island's first batch of innovative 4G apps by the end of this year.

Political Deputy Minster J.Y. Chen of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) believes the 4G market will create new business opportunities to both equipment and service providers in spite of initial startup cost.

Chunghwa President M.B. Shih said 4G services can bring service providers 25% more revenue than 3G can, and that the telecom will increase the number of its 4G service customers to four million by 2016 from the current 100,000 in line with the governmental 2016 goal. (KL)