TAIWAN

Unofficial English translation of "Administrative Regulations on Radio Waves" 3 January 2003.
Unofficial English translation of "Administrative Regulations on Low Power Radio Waves Radiated Devices," 22 March 2004 says that no license is needed for "2.4GHz and 5GHz bands low power wireless local area network (WLAN), not for the purpose of providing telecommunications services" if the equipment is type approved.
Unofficial English translation of "Administrative Regulations on Radio Waves of Industrial, Scientific, Medical Equipment" 23 October 2002.
"This year's IDC Information Society Index [ISI, 2004] has rated Taiwan as having the world's best wireless Internet penetration rate..." ---Asia Intelligence Wire via TelecomAsia.net.
"Taipei to Cloak City in World's Largest Wi-Fi Grid," by Kirby Chien for Reuters, 18 November 2004.
"Taipei honored for world's largest wireless network," by Mo Yan-chih, Taipei Times, 30 June 2006: "...4,200 access points in such a massive population with 90 percent coverage. Despite the wireless network's high rate of coverage, only 30,000 of Taipei's 2.6 million residents have agreed to pay for the service, also known as Wifly, provided by Q-Ware Systems and Services Corp, the Internet provider that built and runs the network. According to Chang Sheng, vice president of Q-Ware, the company originally expected to have 250,000 subscribers by the end of the year, but had lowered that target to 200,000. Free trials of Wifly ended in January [2006], and users now pay either NT$399 [US$12.24] per month as a subscriber, or prepaid rates of NT$500 [US$15.33] a month or NT$100 [US$3.06] a day. The low usage of the wireless service has drawn the attention of international media, with the New York Times running an article this week questioning Taipei's ability to attract more subscribers... Meanwhile, Vice President Annette Lu addressing the 2006 Digital Cities Convention Taipei yesterday, said central government would designate more than NT$300 billion (US$9.2 billion) to build up wireless services nationwide..."
"World's Largest Wi-Fi having Growing Pains," by Ryan Kim, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 April 2007: "Taipei - Since it began 15 months ago, this city's Wi-Fi system has grown rapidly to become the world's largest, with more than 4,200 antennas and counting. The response of the populace, though, has fallen short of expectations. The city has struggled to get subscribers to sign up for the service called WIFLY due to some perceived performance issues, competition from free hotspots and a lack of applications. So far, about 30,000 people are using the system on a consistent basis, well short of original estimates..."
E-Taichung Project Portal - bringing mobile wireless broadband to "at least 200,000 users" in Taichung City. Website in Chinese and English.
The Applications of Wi-Fi Technology in Chinese Taipei" by Dr. Wen-Hao Yang, Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd. - powerpoint presentation at the APEC TEL Workshop on "WiFi and Rural Connectivity," in Bangkok, Thailand, 3-5 April 2005 .
"Government urged to promote WiFi" by Jessie Ho, Taipei Times, 15 June 2005: "Taiwan must accelerate progress in constructing wireless infrastructure in its major cities to catch up in the worldwide trend toward having wireless Internet connections available everywhere, officials and industrialists said yesterday... 'The prevalence of wireless broadband Internet access will stimulate local companies to develop compatible mobile devices, which is expected to draw orders from overseas since many countries are keen to construct so-called "wireless cities,"' said Jason Chen, country manager of Intel Microelectronics Asia Ltd's Taiwan Branch..."
"Motorola opens UWB research center in Taipei," by Jessie Ho, Taipei Times, 9 July 2005.
"Analysis of UWB Cumulative Interference Effect on GSM Systems," by Ye-Qiu Wang, Ying-Hua Lu, Hong-Xin Zhang, Yong Xu and Li-Kun Zhang, Journal of China Universities of Posts and Telecommunications, Volume 13, Number 5 (November 2006), pages 108-111: "UWB devices have few effects on GSM-900 under both FCC and ETSI regulations. GSM-1800 is also little affected by UWB devices under ETSI power limit repulation while possibly disturbed by UWB terminals under FCC regulation protection. The results take no account of any signal attenuation factors or the fact that UWB devices density may be higher in a realistic situation."
"Taiwan forecasts $31B in new investment," by Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service (via InfoWorld) 29 January 2007: "The Taiwan government aims to boost private sector investment in the local economy to NT$1.07 trillion (US$30.56 billion) this year, with a focus on technologies such as RFID (radio frequency identification)..."
"Taiwanese Agency Tests a Broad Range of RFID Uses," by Claire Swedberg, RFID Journal, 9 October 2008: "The Initiative Office for Government RFID Applications, part of Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA)... has already completed seven RFID studies in the past two years, and is currently conducting five more, involving the use of RFID to track legal evidence, chemotherapy drugs, mushroom harvesting and shipment, hikers on a forest trail and duty-free shopping..."
"Taiwan Uses RFID to Combat SARS," RFID Journal, 1 August 2003: "Can RFID help save a country from a massive outbreak of a deadly disease? Taiwan may be the first to find out... Taiwan is not the first country to realize that RFID can be used to track people who come in contact with a potential SARS patient. Two hospitals in Singapore have deployed an RFID system to track doctors and anyone else who visits a suspected SARS patient... The systems are fairly similar. In Taiwan, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a research group funded by Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs, had tested Savi's battery-powered EchoPoint tags and long- and short-range readers. When the government came to ITRI looking for help in tracking the spread of SARS, the research group recommended Savi's RFID system... It took just four weeks to deploy the technology, which includes the amount of time it took Savi to ship readers to Taiwan. Right now, the system is being used in only one hospital. But Taiwanese officials believe that there could be another SARS outbreak when the weather gets cooler, and if that happens, they are prepared to deploy RFID in all hospitals..."
"More Taiwan licenses for passive UHF RFID systems to be issued soon," by Vyacheslav Sobolev and Jessie Shen, DigiTimes.com, 25 July 2005: "The Directorate General of Telecommunications (DGT), a government agency under the supervision of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), confirmed that more Taiwan companies will soon follow Pretide to get official licenses for their passive UHF RFID systems... According to the DGT, Taiwan regulations are very similar to those of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US, and the only big difference is the actual frequency ranges reserved for UHF RFID systems. While the band issued by the FCC includes frequencies from 902 to 928MHz, Taiwan's range is narrower, from 922 to 928MHz, to avoid signal interference with GSM900 cellular communications..."
"Measures to track sex offenders ineffective, critics say," by Rich Chang, Taipei Times, 26 March 2007: "Director of the Department of Corrections at the Ministry of Justice Chang Ching-yun told a press conference last week that although 633 sexual offenders were currently on parole nationwide... [just] 21 parolees were required to wear RFID tags between Nov. 22 and March 20 and only 9 are currently wearing RFID tags, he said. The RFID regulation is flawed and the ministry is seeking to review it, Chang said. The regulation stipulates that the ministry, as well as the city or county government where a sexual offender lives must observe that person's behavior for three months before jointly deciding whether the parolee needs to wear an RFID tag, Chang said. Chang said the ministry was proposing to shorten the three month period to two weeks, which would better prevent sexual offenders from repeating offences shortly after leaving prison..."

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