A majority of Taiwanese are not inclined to switch to 5G service within the next six months, as most of them are waiting for the cost to drop, an online poll released on Thursday by 1111 Job Bank (111人力銀行) showed.
The nation’s three major telecoms have launched 5G services over the past two months.
The average cost of a monthly data plan is NT$1,399, almost twice the average NT$703 most consumers are prepared to pay, the poll found.
The survey found that 52.8 percent of respondents are not considering applying for 5G service in the near future, with 31 percent of them naming cost as the main deterrent.
People are also not motivated to switch to 5G service, because they think 4G is adequate for their personal use (24.9 percent), they are concerned that 5G base stations might not have enough coverage (21 percent) and the devices they own do not support 5G (18.8 percent), the poll found.
Of the respondents who want to switch to 5G service, 64 percent said they would use it for smart home technology, 61.7 percent to watch online content and 53 percent for work, the survey found.
“While 4G brought significant changes for consumers, we are talking about industrial applications for 5G, especially in the manufacturing sector,” Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (FET, 遠傳電信) vice president Eric Li (李明憲) said.
Nearly 100 companies, more than half of which are in the manufacturing sector, are collaborating with FET on 5G, as the technology can be used to improve the manufacturing process, enhance supply chain management and help create a safer workplace, Li said.
5G is poised to become a game changer in people’s lives, 1111 Job bank spokesperson Vivi Hwang (黃若薇) said.
“5G technology’s characteristics of wider bandwidth, 1 millisecond latency and its ability to accommodate more devices per unit area than 4G will change how people work and live,” she said.
Hwang said that since the beginning of last month, the number of 5G-related job vacancies on the 1111 site has grown by about 20 percent, while searches for “5G” on the site have increased by 30 percent.
The survey, conducted from Aug. 1 to 14, collected 1,568 valid responses. It has a margin of error of 2.48 percentage points and a confidence level of 95 percent.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS