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Taipei honored for world's largest wireless network

"We couldn't believe it when we were asked to come out and verify this large network: 4,200 access points in such a massive population with 90 percent coverage."

Kevin McKenzie, chief executive officer of JiWire

Taipei City's wireless network was yesterday named the largest and densest WiFi network in the world.

The city's efforts in Wi-Fi development were recognized by JiWire, a Wi-Fi hotspot authority which maintains the world's most complete directory of verified public Wi-Fi hotspots.

Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) pledged more advanced infrastructure and applications when receiving the award from the chief executive officer of JiWire, Kevin McKenzie.

McKenzie said: "We couldn't believe it when we were asked to come out and verify this large network: 4,200 access points in such a massive population with 90 percent coverage."

Despite the wireless network's high rate of coverage, only 30,000 of Taipei's 2.6 million residents have agreed to pay for the service, also known as Wifly, provided by Q-Ware Systems and Services Corp, the Internet provider that built and runs the network.

According to Chang Sheng (張聖), vice president of Q-Ware, the company originally expected to have 250,000 subscribers by the end of the year, but had lowered that target to 200,000.

Free trials of Wifly ended in January, and users now pay either NT$399 per month as a subscriber, or prepaid rates of NT$500 a month or NT$100 a day.

The low usage of the wireless service has drawn the attention of international media, with the New York Times running an article this week questioning Taipei's ability to attract more subscribers.

Acknowledging the low usage rate, Ma said the city and its partners were exploring ways to attract more subscribers, including a tiered pricing system that would charge different prices for different services and for new devices such as wireless phones and PDAs.

Meanwhile, Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) addressing the 2006 Digital Cities Convention Taipei yesterday, said central government would designate more than NT$300 billion (US$9.2 billion) to build up wireless services nationwide.
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