Moto announces major WiMAX win

Motorola announced a major win for WiMAX network infrastructure in Taiwan. The vendor, which as been aggressively establishing itself as the leading WiMAX infrastructure provider, has secured two contracts from Taiwan's Far EasTone Telecom (FET) as part of the operator's M-Taiwan project. FET is one of Taiwan's largest mobile operators, with more than 6.4 million subscribers--about a 33 percent share of the local wireless mobile market. FET is also a key player in the Taiwanese government's M-Taiwan project, an initiative to create a standards-compliant environment supporting services, education and entertainment on a national level. Roll-out of FET's WiMAX network will be 2-phased. Phase 1 implementation will commence in October 2007 and is expected to be completed by end December, 2007. The second phase is expected to be completed in early 2008.  

"Underlying the M-Taiwan project is a complete WiMAX ecosystem to create a city-wide broadband network in order to roll out integrated mobile services," said Jeffey Gee, executive vice president, Network Technology of Far EasTone Telecom. "As this is a crucial element of the project, we have turned to Motorola for its expertise to design, supply, and deployment a world-class network that will support a multi-vendor environment while enabling future growth as well."    

For sure, Taiwan is an important market for WiMAX, whose backers want to see as many consumer electronics companies as possible put WiMAX chips in their products. Vendors have been working hard with Taiwan's CE companies to create a viable ecosystem for WiMAX.

To read more about Motorola's contract:
- take a look at this release