The combination of Taiwan's love affair with the mobile phone and the Internet prompted marketers years ago to target the nation as the perfect place to develop wireless Web services.
But in what appears to be a case of massive over-hype, flashy commercials have led consumers to believe the next generation of mobile Internet service known as General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) will run at speeds experts warn are grossly exaggerated, prompting predictions of considerable disappointment among consumers.
Major mobile telecommunications companies like Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola, have advertised that the download speeds of second generation wireless Internet devices will leap from the current 9.6kbps (kilobits per second) -- the same as a circa 1993 computer modem -- to an amazing 115kbps. In reality, according to experts, speeds will initially peak at just 36kbps.
"The equipment will gradually be upgraded," said ABN AMRO telecom analyst Jesse Wang, "but the initial service will only run at around 36kbps."
Wang explained that due to such slow access speeds, the market for GPRS wireless Internet services and devices will suffer until access times improve and more reliable handsets come out.
According to Joseph O'Konek, president of mobile phone service provider FarEastone (
"GPRS gives you the potential for higher speeds," he explained. Handset speeds will begin slow and gradually increase to "catch up to the network," he said.
O'Konek explained that expectations for the current generation of mobile phone Internet access, wireless application protocol (WAP) so disappointed consumers with its slow 9.6kbps speeds that "people are really taking a hard look" at GPRS and its potential market size.
According to surveys conducted by local mobile phone service operators FarEastone, Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Cellular and KG Telecom, there are only 60,000 WAP users across Taiwan, or one in every 200 mobile phone users. That small number of WAP users comes from a potential market of over 15 million subscribers, one of the world's most saturated.
In a nation of only 23 million people, the mobile phone subscriber saturation rate in Taiwan is 68 percent according to the survey, second in the world only to Finland, the home of Nokia.
The failed effort to make WAP use a new trend in Taiwan -- after spending huge amounts on advertising -- has forced many retailers to cut prices on related equipment and offer special service packages.
The survey blames slow download speeds, inflated phone bills, the high price of WAP-enabled handsets, and lack of relevant Web services as the top reasons for the failure of the wireless Web to take root in Taiwan. According to one expert, similar problems threaten to bring down the coming GPRS system.
"Expectations [for GPRS] have been built up way too high, just like when WAP phones came out," said Jason Lin (林一平), professor of computer science and engineering at Hsinchu-based National Chiao Tung University (交通大學). "GPRS service will fail to meet expectations as well."
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