Taipei is well on its way to installing what some experts have called the world's largest Wi-Fi grid with more that 10,000 access points that will blanket the city's 272 square kilometers (105 square miles). Already, about 28 square kilometers are covered with hotspots, according to Taipei Mayor Ying-jeou Ma, that have attracted 35,000 users in its test phase. And by early next year, almost the entire city will be covered.
"Accessing the Net will be as easy as using cell phones," explained Mayor Ma. "There will be no need for network cables and people will be able to be online anywhere, anytime."
Speaking at a press conference organized by Intel Corp. to unveil its Digital Communities initiative, Ma explained that the wireless plans were the next important step in Taipei's transformation to a cyber city. And indeed, a great deal has already been accomplished since Ma was first elected mayor in 1998 with an agenda to maintaining Taiwan's global competitiveness by transforming it into an "Internet city" for the 21st century. As such, he might be regarded as the first cyber mayor elected largely for his Internet-based platform.
"When I campaigned for Taipei mayor, I promised Taipei citizens that I would build Taipei into a world-class capital if I were elected," Ma explained at the 2001 Global Internet Summit three years after he was first elected. "To deliver on that promise, I have to build Taipei into a cyber city first, because it is part of the promise and the best way to enhance Taipei's competitiveness in the 21st century."
Taipei's 2.65 million residents must endure some of the most heavily congested roads in the world. There are 1.6 million motor vehicles in the city, including 650,000 cars and 950,000 motorcycles and scooters. While Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong have 218, 248, and 274 vehicles per kilometer of city road respectively, Taipei has a whopping 1,043 -- four times the traffic density of these other cities.
Regardless of how fast roads are built to keep up with the growth in transportation demand, Taipei -- situated in a natural basin bounded on three sides by mountains and on the fourth by a river -- will always run up against the limits of its physical space. "To solve the issue of transportation," said Ma, "we have to build an expansive public information network. People are increasingly using the Internet when working with each other and the government. The citizens of Taipei will no longer have to spend time on the road running errands or even commuting to work."
The slogan for the initiative keeps this objective clearly in sight: "frequent the Net and free up the roads."
Record of Accomplishment
The vision of building out in cyberspace to overcome the limitations of the city's physical space has progressed steadily. "By the end of my first four-year term we had already achieved most of the goals of a cyber city," Ma said.
This included free, lifetime e-mail addresses for citizens, setting up Web sites for 436 agencies and 227 public schools, establishing an "e-Services Online" Web site that put 147 of the city's services online (29 of these offering online payment), set up 519 public information kiosks, provided 454 public computers in all municipal libraries, and designed 449 community Web sites in support of the different administrative districts under the city's jurisdiction.
Other innovations included a free three-hour, online training course for Taipei citizens to acquire and sharpen their Internet skills. To date, Ma said, over 300,000 citizens have taken this opportunity.
He also launched "Taipei e-Campus" online university and a Lifelong Learning Center to encourage citizens to further their education through the Internet. In addition to business management, information management, linguistics and humanities classes, the cyber-universities
are now working with different government agencies to design advanced classes for government employees. More than 100,000 citizens per month are availing themselves of these online educational tools.
The result of the cyber city program is that Taipei is now one of the most wired cities in the world, with 88 percent of its 910,000 households having personal computers. Eighty-four percent of homes have Internet access and a full 64percent have a broadband connection.
The next logical step, according to Ma, is to extend this connectivity to cheap wireless access for citizen anywhere in the city. "If you can access the Internet, anytime, anyplace with any device ... the competitiveness of the city will be greatly enhanced," he said.
Private Partnership Model
The city-wide Wi-Fi network is being built by a private company, Q-Ware Corp. at an estimated cost of USD$70 million, in partnership with Nortel using its Wireless Mesh Network solution.
The biggest engineering challenge for connecting such a large number of access points throughout Taipei, according to a Nortel media statement, is identifying where each point needs to be placed, then ensuring each location allows transmission of a clear signal without interference. Pinpointing ideal locations for the more than 10,000 access points has been simplified by a new software tool called MeshPlanner. MeshPlanner is designed to allow network designers to provide superior service coverage and secure network access for seamless mobility throughout a city or campus while reducing planning and implementation costs.
According to C.S. Lin, chairman of Q-ware and chief executive officer of the President Group, the next phase of the project is expected to be completed by the end of August 2005 which will make Wi-Fi access available throughout the commercial area of Taipei.
To recoup their investment, Q-ware plans to charge citizens a monthly fee -- the equivalent of approximately USD$4.50-$12. This is less than the USD$25-$30 that wired broadband providers charge. The company hopes to attract a third of the city's residents as customers and to break even within five years.
The project has also attracted the support of other technology companies such as Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Microsoft Corp., and Cisco Systems Inc. all of whom are providing a combination of technical assistance and equipment.
The wireless plan will cost the city nothing. "We are doing it on a 'BOT'' plan -- a build, operate and transfer concept -- where a computer company takes care of installing all the access points (APs) and the city government provides all the facilities such as street light poles or electric light poles for installing the APs," Ma explained.
As part of the deal, Q-Ware has agreed to pay the city one percent of revenues in first two years of the agreement, and three percent in the remaining seven years. However, Ma admitted, "The business model of this wireless digital city is still to be developed, so there are risks ahead. But on the other hand there are also a lot of opportunities."
