Taiwan betting on WiMax to win hotspot status - Yahoo! News

Taiwan betting on WiMax to win hotspot status - Yahoo! News: "Asia was the earliest commercial adopter of the WiMax standard, with South Korea the first country to set up wireless 'hotspots' thanks to heavy backing from Samsung. In Japan, mobile phone operators and their partners are jockeying to win two WiMax licences which will be awarded by the government by the end of the year. Taiwan has already handed out six WiMax licences and operators are due to start services by the end of 2008. It is far from certain whether WiMax and its backers - grouped around major industry players such as Intel, Sprint Nextel and Nokia - will prevail in making the technology the mainstream standard of the next generation of mobile broadband communications. However, Asia is investing heavily in WiMax research and infrastructure in the hope that its electronics makers can define technology standards, rather than just using those set by others."