Taiwan ranks ninth in the world for quality of hotel Wi-Fi and the prevalence of free in-room Wi-Fi at hotels, according to Hotel Wi-Fi Test Inc, an online service that collects, analyzes and distributes hotel Wi-Fi data from around the world.
The report released on Jan. 20 said that 75.7 percent of Taiwan’s hotels were rated as having adequate Wi-Fi and 85 percent of them offer free in-room Wi-Fi.
South Korea was the leader in hotel Wi-Fi quality at 92 percent, 7.1 percentage points higher than second-place Japan’s 84.9 percent, in the service’s rankings of 50 countries and areas in North America, Europe and Asia.
Ukraine had the world’s third-best hotel Wi-Fi quality, followed by Switzerland, Romania, Hong Kong, Sweden, Norway, Taiwan and Hungary, according to Hotel Wi-Fi Test.
Hotels judged as having adequate Wi-Fi had to provide an expected download speed of at least 3Mbps (the Netflix recommendation for SD-quality streaming) and an upload speed of 500kbps (the Skype recommendation for high-quality non-HD video calling).
The free Wi-Fi percentage was calculated as the percentage of hotels that offer free in-room Wi-Fi among all hotels for which the Wi-Fi price structure and availability is known.
The report said that hotels in Europe were 33 percent more likely to have adequate Wi-Fi than hotels in the US, but US hotels were 14 percent more likely to offer free Wi-Fi than European hotels.
Asia ranked higher than Europe or the US for hotel Wi-Fi quality (49.5 percent), but had the lowest percentage of hotels offering free in-room Wi-Fi (61.2 percent) among the three areas, the report said.
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all