Up to 1,000 taxis will soon offer free Internet services to passengers in a groundbreaking application of worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) technology, a local telecom operator said yesterday.
VMAX Telecom Co (威邁斯電信) will officially launch the Internet service on Tuesday, the company’s spokesman said, adding that more than 500 taxis have already been fitted with the wireless device.
“For the first time ever, taxis will be equipped with WiMAX technology to offer passengers wireless access to the Internet,” the spokesman said by telephone. “The service will be free of charge to passengers in the initial stage, and we will assess whether to charge a fee in the future.”
The National Communications Commission (NCC) said on Wednesday it would evaluate the operation of WiMAX services first before issuing any new licenses.
“We have yet to see performance reports from the telecom operators,” commission spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said.
“We will assess their performance to see if there is a need to issue new licenses,” Chen said.
The commission on Wednesday approved Vee Telecom Multimedia Co’s (威達超舜) application for a WiMAX operating license.
Vee Telecom must begin offering the service within six months of receiving the license. The company plans to offer the service in Kinmen and Taichung first, the commission said.
WiMAX licenses were first put up for bidding in 2007.
Companies that won licenses were required to install infrastructure and obtain official licenses within two-and-a-half years. The licenses allowed each company to offer WiMAX services in designated regions.
So far, four of the six WiMAX licenses owners have begun operations — Tatung Infocomm (大同電信), Far EasTone Telecom (遠傳電信), VMAX and Global Mobile (全球一動).
The commission is scheduled to review an application from First International Telecom (大眾電信) for a license next week.
Previously, the commission said it was planning to issue one more WiMAX license allowing telecom operators to offer WiMAX nationwide rather than designated regions.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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