The Taipei Computer Association (TCA, 台北市電腦公會), the country’s largest IT association with 4,000-plus corporate members, said yesterday that Taiwan’s WiMAX wireless broadband operators should merge to reach a higher economic scale.
“Taiwan has invested a lot in the WiMAX technology and the merger of existing operators will help reach bigger economic scale and make the most use of resources,” TCA chairman Wang Jeng-tang (王振堂) said at a press conference on WiMAX at Computex Taipei.
“It also provides another choice for the public in addition to the three carriers that have stressed the LTE [long term evolution] technology based on the current 3G network,” he added.
Wang said the government should lower the bar for such a merger, which now requires 70 percent coverage of the 4G network for each operator. The policy will help increase local subscribers to the WiMAX wireless service and ensure sustainable operation of the six operators, he said.
Worldwide WiMAX subscribers grew 92.8 percent year-on-year between 2009 and last year, with 12.82 million users in 2010. The number is forecast to increase another 51.9 percent to 19.46 million users this year, taking 20 percent of the global 4G technology market, according to Taipei-based Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute (產業情報研究所).
Currently Taiwan has six licensed WiMAX operators — Global Mobile Corp (全球一動), VMAX Telecom Co (威邁思), Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), First International Telecom Corp (大眾電信), Tatung InfoComm Co (大同電信) and Vee TIME Corp (威達雲端電訊).
However, the combined total number of their subscribers only stood at 58,300 as of March. The low usage rate casts a shadow over the future development of WiMAX wireless technology.
Meanwhile, Global Mobile has forged a partnership with major South Korean telecoms carrier KT Corp to make communication more convenient for South Koreans visiting Taiwan.
Under a cooperation agreement signed recently between Global Mobile and KT, South -Korean consumers can buy Global Mobile devices in South Korea and use them during their stay in Taiwan, the Taiwanese company said in a statement on Monday.
Global Mobile said it is focusing on South Korean tourists as figures showed that during the January-to-March period, the number of South Koreans visiting Taiwan surged 41 percent from a year earlier.
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