14 DAY TRIAL // Taiwan, the country where this year's Computex show is hosted, is planning on becoming the top wireless region in the world. Apparently, the Taiwanese government has listed the development of a wireless infrastructure among the 12 new construction projects aimed at stimulating the national economy. According to the newly inaugurated Taiwanese premier, Liu Chao-shiuan, who spoke at a session held at the Legislative Yuan last week, Taiwan has great plans for a wireless infrastructure.
The plan, announced by the Taiwanese premier, includes both urban and rural areas. The government will build complete wireless networks in the country's major cities and "wireless highways" in remote areas, thus making all Taiwanese Internet users benefit from the project.
The program is actually taking a 2004 initiative of the Taipei City government to a bigger scale. Back then, the newly inaugurated Taiwanese president, Ma Ying-jeou, was mayor of Taipei. He is responsible for creating the "Mobile-City" program, meant to provide Taipei with a strong wireless network.
The program succeeded in assuring that over 90% of the population of Taipei City had access to wireless LAN services, only six months after it was officially launched. Back in 2006, JiWire, an international certification organization, confirmed Taipei was the city with the largest public wireless network in the world.
According to the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB), under Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), the program will also enable Taiwanese hardware manufacturers to expand their production to central office end products, such as WiMAX base stations.
According to IDB's estimations, the production value of the WiMAX industry in Taiwan is expected to reach US$3.29 billion in 2010.
In the short term, the Taiwanese government plans to provide approximately 4.5 million people with wireless access to the Internet by the end of this year. In order to achieve this, the government aims to built up 10 mobile cities and 14 mobile special zones.