Far EasTone Telecommunications Co Ltd (遠傳電信) yesterday said it plans to set up an indoor 5G trial field next month at Neihu Technology Park (內湖科技園區) for 100 enterprises or research organizations to run three-month free trials, a day after the telecom won the first approval to install a 5G-based Proof of Business network.
The telecom said it plans to offer the trials in collaboration with Ericsson Taiwan (台灣愛立信) at the Neihu Sports Center on a commercial 5G network using the 3.5 gigahertz band.
As part of the trials, the telecom is to supply free 5G SIM cards, routers and an application enablement platform, allowing firms to utilize it to test Internet of Things (IoT) business opportunities from this month to December.
Photo: CNA
The average download speed of the 5G network is at least 10 times faster than a 4G LTE network, the company said.
“We hope the trials help upstream and downstream companies transit to 5G technology more smoothly,” Far EasTone vice president Philip Tseng (曾詩淵) told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference in Taipei.
The telecom is teaming up with Taipei’s Smart City Project Management Office, Department of Information Technology and Department of Economic Development, as well as the Taiwan IOT Technology and Industry Association (台灣物聯網產業技術協會) to launch the 5G trials.
Notebook computer maker Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦) and smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) are to provide the testing ground, the telecom said.
The announcement came after the National Communications Commission on Thursday approved Far EasTone’s plan to deploy a 5G proof-of-business network.
The commission has approved six 5G proof-of-concept trials and is still reviewing other applications, it said, adding that it welcomes more applications to explore business opportunities or business models on 5G networks.
Telecoms that win 5G spectrum licenses are expected to launch commercial 5G services in July next year at the earliest, the commission said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained