Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday unveiled his campaign platform on issues relating to information technology, promising to offer a free wireless service at public locations starting next year should he be re-elected in the year-end vote.
Taipei’s wireless network service, WiFly, has reached 90 percent coverage. Hau vowed to further expand that to 100 percent and make it free of charge.
“The Internet has become the most popular medium for the young generation and our free wireless service will be a dream come true for those who want to be able to go online anytime and anywhere,” Hau said at his campaign headquarters.
Photo: Lin Shu-hui, Taipei Times
Currently the WiFly service costs consumers NT$100 per day, NT$399 per month and NT$4,200 per year. The service was initiated by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 2004 when he was Taipei mayor.
Turning the WiFly into a free wireless service will cost the city government about NT$100 million (US$3 million) to NT$200 million a year.
Meanwhile, Hau’s Democratic Progressive Party counterpart Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday launched a souvenir shop on Changan E Road in a bid to attract voters.
Instead of setting up a campaign headquarters, Su said his team would launch about 10 more shops around the city to sell products that feature his icons. Taipei residents are also invited to visit the shops and discuss his policies with volunteers and staff, Su added.
“The shop is a new election campaign form and a new election language. It is a small but more intimate platform for me and the residents of Taipei to hold conversations,” he said.
In response to the Hau team mistakenly sending Su’s invitation to the Taipei International Flora Expo to the Executive Yuan, Su said he later received the invitation and plans to attend the event.
Hau said the expo’s organizing committee sent the invitation to the Executive Yuan because it followed the same protocol as that for international sports events, which involves inviting all former premiers, including Su, to attend the event.
Hau said that the committee should have asked the Executive Yuan to pass on the invitation to Su’s campaign office.
“Our sincere desire to invite Mr. Su to the expo remains the same. I believe he will discover the beauty of the event after he attends the expo,” Hau said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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