The third-generation mobile Internet licensing process will be delayed until at least June, government sources said yesterday. The decision was immediately praised by analysts and industry players alike, who watched in horror last year as Europe's 3G auctions turned dreams of the mobile Internet into a financial nightmare.
The government had planned to announce rules governing licenses that would allow companies to build 3G mobile Internet network's this month, but put off the decision following similar delays in Singapore and South Korea.
Although officials don't expect to formalize the licensing process until June, they still plan to award licenses by October as originally planned.
"A lot of countries have decided to delay their licensing," said Nathan Lin (
Investors worldwide turned bearish on telecommunications stocks last year as European governments collected huge payoffs during bidding for 3G licenses. In England alone, five companies paid a total of US$35 billion -- or US$118 per person citizen -- to build a 3G mobile Internet network and run services.
In their zeal to obtain a license, these companies paid so much money that some analysts doubt their ability to finance the license cost on top of the cash needed for the 3G network itself. Investor sentiment has yet to improve.
Industry players in Taiwan welcomed the chance to slow down the 3G licensing process.
"Taiwan should look at what other nations are experiencing. There is no need to move too fast," said Joseph Fan (
Investors and telecommunications industry pundits alike awoke from the dotcom-daze to find a world where an untested technology -- 3G mobile Internet -- is being scrutinized by a very simple question: how will it make money?
Outside of Japan, few mobile phone service providers have been able to entice people to surf the mobile Internet.
High prices and a lack of attractive services kept many people in Taiwan away from the first generation of mobile Internet, WAP (wireless application protocol). Costly WAP phones ran at a glacial speed of 9.6 kilobits per second, about the same as a circa 1993 computer.
The second generation of mobile Net access, GPRS (general packet radio service), which will run at 115kbps -- twice as fast as current conventional PC modems -- is just now ready to be launched in Taiwan. The only hurdle for the service is a lack of GPRS handsets, which should hit the market by March.
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