In a bid to avoid the massive bidding wars that sent European 3G mobile Internet license prices sky-high, the Taiwan government last week proposed slashing paid-in-capital requirements from NT$10 billion down to NT$6 billion for each 3G license bidding group.
Within the next 30 days, the Directorate General of Telecommunications (DGT,
"We will invite potential operators to give additional comments at another meeting ... tentatively in mid-August," said Vivian Wang, director of planning at the Directorate General, which is under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
After the August meeting, the Ministry will begin collecting applications, a process lasting up to the middle of November. From that time until the December auction, the applications will be processed and information verified.
The government plans to use the application period to whittle the total number of bidders down to seven or eight. Industry players in Taiwan will bid for five licenses, which are good for 15 years, to operate a 3G network in Taiwan. Winners will have 10 years to pay off the license.
According to tentative rules set down during last Friday's meeting, license winners will have to pay 30 percent of their bid immediately, with the remaining 70 percent paid over a decade -- 5 percent each year for the first two years, 10 percent per year for the next four years, and 5 percent each year for the remaining four years.
Lobbying to keep 3G license fees to the bare minimum, local telecom operators, including Taiwan Cellular Corp (
Europe's massively over-priced auctions -- which sent 3G licenses to a stratospheric US$33 billion in the United Kingdom and US$48 billion in Germany during the Internet hype days early in 2000 -- may have hobbled the ability of companies there to develop the technology to its fullest potential, according to industry pundits.
Since the equipment necessary to build a 3G network will cost nearly as much as the licenses themselves, questions remain as to whether European firms will be able to make further investments in new 3G services for consumers to try out.
The hope of the entire industry rides on what people will ultimately use the Web-without-wires for. While some analysts have said consumers crave little more than simple messaging, sending photos or accessing e-mail, it remains to be seen whether 3G licenses will reap Web gold.
Concerns over high auction prices prompted Japan -- which seeks to become a world leader in 3G equipment and services -- to give 3G licenses out for free, based on firms' technological prowess, business plan and other factors.
Taiwan appears set to offer a plan somewhere between the European and Japanese models. Determined to make money to help bolster government coffers, the telecommunications ministry refuses to consider plans that award licenses for free.
At the same time, there is hope in this nation of 18 million mobile phone users that Chinese-language 3G services invented in Taiwan will be assimilated across the Taiwan Strait in China, along with Taiwan-made networking equipment and mobile phones.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”