Ericsson, the world’s leading telecoms equipment supplier, yesterday urged the government to speed up the release of 4G long-term evolution (LTE) spectrum and operating licenses to ensure that the nation does not lose out in a knowledge-based economy.
Less than a decade ago, Taiwan was pioneering the launch of 3G mobile services, but the nation has lagged behind its neighbors, Japan and South Korea, in deploying next-generation, or 4G, networks.
“We see LTE has been rolled out in Japan and [South] Korea rapidly,” Ericsson Taiwan Ltd and Ericsson China and North East Asia chairman Mats H Olsson told a media briefing.
“That has not happened in Taiwan, nor do I see any immediate plans to make it happen. That’s the reason for my concern,” Olsson said.
According to the latest statistics provided by GSM Association (GSMA), a trade association for the global mobile industry, 93 operators are set to commercially launch LTE services by the end of next year and global telecoms operators are expected to invest US$100 billion in upgrading networks to LTE over the next five years.
Worldwide, revenues from LTE-related industries are expected to grow 3,400 percent by 2015, Olsson said, citing forecasts by market researcher In-Stat.
“LTE is becoming a technical and also commercial reality,” Olsson said.
It is the responsibility of governments and regulators to make spectrum and operating licenses ready as early as possible for telecoms operators to launch new services and new technologies to meet customer demand, he said.
If Taiwan were to release LTE spectrum and licenses in 2017, as some have speculated, “I think that will be very late,” Olsson said. “Taiwan will lag behind the rest of the world.”
“I’m concerned about Taiwan’s competitiveness in a knowledge economy,” he said.
“Taiwan could get a big share from that potential growth, if -Taiwan can only speed up the development of an ecosystem for LTE. That is the reason why we have increased investment in Taiwan for an LTE IOT [interoperability test] services center,” he said.
In the initial phase, Taiwan would boost its economic growth by 0.27 percentage points, or by NT$5 billion, if the country boosted mobile broadband penetration by 10 percent, according to GSMA’s forecast released earlier this year.
This year, Ericsson has invested hundreds of million dollars in expanding its interoperability test facilities for end device makers to test their production supporting LTE technology.
The center, located in Banciao District (板橋), New Taipei City (新北市), is the fifth LTE IOT center launched by Ericsson around the globe after those in the US, Canada, Germany and Japan.
About 25 manufacturers of tablet devices, mobile phones, TV set-top boxes, routers and dongles plan to have their products tested in the center before exporting them overseas, Ericsson said.
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