Abstract
As large cities in North America and Europe are undertaking wireless city infrastructure projects, major cities in Asian countries are also setting up their own wireless network system projects in order to raise their international competitiveness. In addition to the ubiquitous network trends in Japan and Korea, Taipei completed its WiFly system infrastructure project in 2006 to become the world's first wireless city. The Singaporean government proposed a series of wireless and cable broadband network projects. The Indian IT city of Pune is also eagerly pursuing its own wireless city plans. This report will analyze the development of Taipei's wireless city project.
Taipei WiFly Project a Reference for Other Cities
Taipei was the first city worldwide to deploy a large scale, public wireless broadband network drawing much international attention. However, initiated while lacking a detailed pre-assessment and without successful cases to refer to, the WiFly project has encountered problems of signal instability and a low usage rate. Other cities wishing to invest in or currently undertaking wireless city projects in other countries are therefore referring to Taipei's experience with the WiFly project.
Despite the mention of various application services in the original proposal, the importance of content and services has been overlooked in the project's actual implementation. This has resulted in WiFly services being unable to meet user needs and various application services mentioned in the contract between Qware and the Taipei City government never materializing. Several improvements must be made in both software and hardware. Also, if fees are charged in the preliminary stages without giving users ample time to become accustomed to and establish confidence in WiFly, then users will naturally be skeptical of it. Therefore, operators need to provide various application services and take measures so people are willing to pay. Only then can the characteristics of the WiFly network be fully displayed. Then users will be attracted by the convenience of WiFly wireless internet services. Thereby, more users will be added. These issues are critical for Qware in the development of the network.
Also, there must be segmentation of WiFly user groups. Taipei has an extremely high penetration rate for broadband internet. It would be unrealistic to assume that all people in Taipei will use WiFly. In other words, people who really need to get online anytime, anywhere, such as sales people or real estate agents who are always working on the go, are the target customers. Besides that, internet users with a higher sensitivity to relatively high broadband internet fees, such as students, will be attracted by more inexpensive rates.
Improving connection quality and stability is a task no operator can afford to ignore. After beginning cooperation with FarEasTone, Qware has stated that it is looking to future integration of 3G and WiFly wireless internet with the hope of meeting the demand for ubiquitous internet access. This will result in users showing higher levels of satisfaction for WiFly services. The emergence of value-added application services and user group segmentation will prevent weak growth in the number of WiFly users.
Appendix
Glossary of Terms
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AP |
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Access Point |
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BOT |
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Build-Operate-Transfer |
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NBN |
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National Broadband Network |
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WBN |
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Wireless Broadband Network |
List of Companies
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BenQ |
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Chunghwa Telecom |
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Dopod |
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Eten |
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Far Eastone |
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HP |
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Intel |
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Nortel |
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Qware |
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Sony |
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Sparq |
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Taiwan Mobile |
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Uni-President Group |