Vastar Cable TV System, one of Taiwan's six WiMAX licensees, proposed a joint WiMAX BTS (Base Transceiver Station) procurement project in a monthly conference among the six WiMAX operators and received majority support, Taiwan's Commercial Times reported on September 23.

According to said report quoting a Vastar official, it is estimated that the overall cost of more than NT$30 billion (US$935.88 million; US$1=NT$32.06) for approximately 15,000 BTS can be downsized to about NT$15 billion (US$467.94 million) by means of joint procurement, and the cost of islandwide network deployment can be reduced to NT$5 billion (US$155.98 million) as well. However, since the six WiMAX operators had adopted different telecom equipment providers' WiMAX products for the M-Taiwan project, the interoperability issue remains a problem to tackle.

The six operators expect to reach a final decision on the joint procurement project in October.