Mobile Taiwan

Via Taiwan News, via Smart Mobs, comes word of a project to build a mobile phone broadband Internet cloud over all of Taiwan by 2008. Salient bits:

The target is to set up the basic infrastructures to combine cellular phone network service, IT computer platforms, and broadband Internet links with a total 6,000 kilometers of the broadband fixed networks, and 10 "mobile cities" plus 15 "special mobile districts" around Taiwan by 2008, according to Kao Tien-tzu head of telecommunication and information section at the advisory group.

Kao said the project has now been underway and the government has the goal of taking Taiwan from number 20 to among the top 5 countries in the world for wireless on-line access, while at the same time lowering the charged service fees to up to 80 percent to be competitive with the top ten most inexpensive national rates in the world.

Obviously, it's one thing for a government to say it's going to do something like this, and entirely another to actually do it. But what the hey, it's a cool idea. Answering the question of whether it will work requires the use of another national newsweekly cliche: only time will tell.