Taiwan market: WiMAX services tilting toward Southern Taiwan region

Taiwan-based WiMAX players are worried about the lag in service introductions between the northern and southern Taiwan regions will become an obstacle to a major take-off in the adoption of WiMAX services, according to market sources.

Following the inauguration of its WiMAX services on the offshore Penghu island in April, Tatung InfoComm will also kick off its commercial WiMAX operations in the southern port city of Kaohsiung early next month, said company president Peter Yen.

Tatung has also started trial runs of the WiMAX networks it established in Kaohsiung County under the Taiwan government-backed M-Taiwan program, and plans to switch the networks into commercial operations by the end of this year, Yen added.

Tatung plans to build up its WiMAX networks for the Taichung area (central Taiwan) in 2010, Yen noted.

In addition to Tatung, Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET) began to offer service trials on the WiMAX networks it built under the M-Taiwan program in Taichung in May 2009 and plans to begin official operations at the end of this year, according to EFT sources.

Meanwhile, Vee Telecom Multimedia will launch WiMAX services on a trial basis in central Taiwan in September, with official launch set in the fourth quarter of 2009, company chairman Richard Lai said earlier.

On the other hand, Vmax Telecom and Global Mobile, the two WiMAX licensees for northern part of Taiwan, are currently building up their networks for the Taipei and Hsinchu areas, respectively. The two companies both plan to inaugurate their WiMAX services in the second half of the year.

The time lag in the deployments of WiMAX networks by licensees in northern and southern Taiwan will prevent WiMAX operators from offering related services such as roaming at the same time, and this could hamper the promotion of WiMAX services in Taiwan, market sources commented.