The Taipei City Government yesterday announced plans to improve the service on its Taipei Free Wi-Fi network.
“Because expanding the Taipei Free Wi-Fi network for the whole city is too expensive for the Taipei City Government alone, we should bring in the private sector,” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said.
Criticizing the current service as being hard to connect to and use, despite the city’s significant infrastructure investments, Ko said that cooperating with the private sector would enable the city to focus on future investment and provide a better service.
At a ceremony at Taipei City Hall, the city government signed an agreement with 11 businesses that provide free Wi-Fi services to create the Taipei Wireless Internet Alliance.
The plan is for the group to integrate their services with Taipei Free Wi-Fi, which is to be integrated into a national free Wi-Fi service iTaiwan. The signatories include 7-Eleven, FamilyMart and the Eslite bookstore chain.
Taipei Department of Information Technology Commissioner Lee Wei-bin (李維斌) said that, after integration, the city would focus on friendly and convenient Wi-Fi hotspot services, rather than continuing to attempt to carpet the city with Wi-Fi access.
“There is no way for public or private investment to provide free Wi-Fi everywhere,” he said. “If you plan to use the Internet everywhere, you would be better off looking at 4G services.”
With residents’ reliance on Internet access already a de facto basic necessity, businesses have an incentive to provide access in order to attract clients, Lee said.
The city should focus its efforts on providing access only in important areas where there is no incentive for businesses to provide free service, such as libraries and bus stations, he said, adding that the partnership with private firms was a way to focus resources where they are truly needed.
When asked about the city’s goals for the reformed service, he said the city would no longer measure the system’s success in terms of the number of users.
Rather, the city would seek to provide reliable Wi-Fi hotspot access at speeds sufficient to check e-mail and conduct Internet searches, he said.
He added that technical obstacles make it practically impossible to provide a reliable Wi-Fi service at all times in areas of heavy usage, such as MRT stations.
However, before the reformed service can be rolled out, the city still needs to hold talks with the alliance on basic standards for the service, including guaranteeing information privacy and providing customer service, Lee said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai
RSS