Don’t know if anyone is keeping track, but hopefully 4G may soon come to Taiwan.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323936404578580860688589102
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20131018PD218.html
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20131019PD200.html
[quote=“PapaAzucar”]Don’t know if anyone is keeping track, but hopefully 4G may soon come to Taiwan.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323936404578580860688589102
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20131018PD218.html
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20131019PD200.html[/quote]
I can’t wait. It was 30-60 megabits per second in hk with lte (I heard lte a doubles that) and I only get 8-15 here. Though battery drain seems to be more than double with lte versus 3G
Well yeah, 4G would be nice. I’m sure it will be faster than the 3G I use now.
But quite frankly, the whole idea of auctioning spectrum to the highest bidder sucks. The winner gets near-monopoly status, leaving the losers to lease bandwidth if they want to compete. Plus the huge price tag for the winner ensures high prices have to be charged to recoup the investment.
The supposed benefit is that the government gets a fast one-time transfusion of cash. But then customers will be paying that for years as a stealth tax.
The USA pioneered this dumb idea of bandwidth auctions, and Taiwan has foolishly followed. Russia, among others, took the approach to license bandwidth free to all carriers, on the stipulation that they actually use it and not just sit on it.
One only has to look at the high bandwidth charges in the USA to see how this plays out. In Taiwan I pay about 1/3 of what my brother in the USA has to pay. Actually, in the USA it’s really hard to figure out how much a plan is going to cost you - it’s based on bandwidth, with huge penalties if you go over a certain prescribed minimum. I went googling for answers on what 4G costs in the USA, and best I could come up with is this. If you look at this link and others, you’ll see that it’s really opaque - you sign up for a plan, and later on learn that it’s costing you several times what you expected.
So yes, 4G might be coming soon to Taiwan, but don’t be surprised if you can’t afford it.
But we shall see.
Looks like Chunghwa Telecom won the bid.
focustaiwan.tw/news/ast/201311250008.aspx
focustaiwan.tw/news/ast/201311250008.aspx
I saw a Chunghwa tv commercial about 4g LTE network.
But only 500 cells by second half of 2014?
I may wait till 2015 to get a 4g phone like the Galaxy S6? or iPhone7?
[quote=“PapaAzucar”]
I may wait till 2015 to get a 4g phone like the Galaxy S6? or iPhone7?[/quote]
You mean the iPhone 6s. Looks just like the 6, but has a faster processor and better camera.