The number of wireless Internet users in the country grew about 45 percent year-on-year to 5.84 million as of January, placing Taiwan fourth worldwide in terms of Internet penetration rate in the Asia-Pacific region, a survey found.
That translates into a wireless Internet penetration rate of 29.2 percent in Taiwan, compared with South Korea’s 52.5 percent, or 24 million users, and China’s 8.9 percent, or 117.6 million users, the survey by the Taiwan Network Information Center (台灣網路資訊中心) said.
Data on the number of wireless Internet users in other Asian countries were not readily available for comparison, said the survey’s organizer, Liang Te-hsin (梁德馨), an associate professor of statistics and information science at Fu Jen Catholic University.
In spite of this year’s double-digit growth, “the nation’s wireless and mobile Internet users grew at a steady but worse-than-expected pace in the past three years,” Liang told a media briefing.
That could be warning signal to the nation’s telecom operators, which have been aggressively promoting wireless and mobile Internet access, she said.
Cost was one of the most frequently cited concerns by respondents, who said they preferred that monthly fees be limited to under NT$500. Another major concern was the pricing structure, with a majority of respondents expressing confusion over how telecom operators charge for the services, Liang said.
As a result, telecom operators should develop customer-oriented wireless Internet services with a target group in mind, Liang said, especially as most respondents still did not view wireless access as a “must have” service.
The survey found that 63 percent of respondents, aged over 20 who answered the telephone poll, were satisfied with the quality of access to either wireless or mobile Internet.
Meanwhile, only 27 of respondents aged over 20 who answered via an online survey expressed satisfaction.
Liang attributed the huge discrepancy in satisfaction level to the fact that most surveyed telephone respondents were “inexperienced wireless Internet users,” who might be easier to please, while online respondents were mostly frequent Internet surfers.
The survey also showed that most wireless Internet users use the service for data collection and e-mails.
Overall Internet penetration — covering both wired and wireless access — in Taiwan reached 68.9 percent this year, or 15.9 million Internet users, the poll showed.
This lagged behind South Korea’s 76 percent, Japan’s 73.8 percent and Hong Kong’s 69.5 percent, the survey said.
China has the region’s largest population of Internet users at 298 million people, but its overall Internet penetration rate remained low at 22.4 percent, the poll said.
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