The W2i Digital Cities Convention in Taipei, June 28--30, 2006 coincided with the completion of the Taipei City Government and partner Q-Ware's WiFly broadband-wireless network, the largest of its kind in the world. For Mayor Ma Ying-jeou, who hosted the Convention with W2i, the moment was a milestone in his mayoral career. In addition to leading local authorities representatives from around the world in signing the Taipei Wireless City Declaration, Mayor Ma spoke passionately about the promise of broadband-wireless infrastructure, applications, and services for cities and communities.
Remarks of Mayor Ma Ying-jeou at W2i Taipei, 2006:
Birth of a Competitive Cyber City
About seven years ago, we built an infrastructure and offered free e-mail accounts for life to all our citizens. This was way before Hotmail and Yahoo! Began offering their services. The city did not pay for this service. Instead, it went through an international bidding process, and three companies including IBM, won the bid. Currently, more than 240,000 citizens have received free accounts, and more than 300,000 citizens have received free Internet training. The motto was to encourage citizens to use the Internet more than they used the city's roads?"frequent the net and free up the roads."
The reason for this was that in 1999, AsiaWeek surveyed 40 cities in Asia and ranked Taipei as the second-most-livable city in Asia. However, while Taipei ranked high on most criteria, including ranking first in per-capita educational budget, it ranked 34th in number of motor vehicles per square kilometer of city road. While Singapore had 218 vehicles per square kilometer, Tokyo 248, and Hong Kong 274, Taipei had more than all three cities put together: 1043 vehicles per square kilometers.
Building M-Taipei
In 2002, the goal was to begin deploying wireless broadband as part of the CyberCity Initiative. The idea of the initiative is simple: By using the broadband-wireless network, citizens can access the Internet anytime, anywhere and on any device, including through notebook computers, PDAs and mobile phones. The idea is not to be just connected but also to have mobility and agility.
To enable the project, the city selected Q-ware, on a build-and-operate basis, who committed to investing more than a billion NT$'s. The pilot project was launched in 2004 to connect 30 subway stations covering about 20 percent of the population, or 520,000 people. The next phase was launched in February 2005, when 2,000 access points were deployed to cover 28 square kilometers of the city, or roughly half the population. The third phase will be completed this July, when more than 4,000 access points will be deployed covering 134 square kilometers and a population of about 2.3 million. This makes Taipei the largest wireless deployment in the world, and it has been certified by JiWire.
The idea of the cyber city, especially the second phase of building and deploying wireless broadband, is to not just make the city wireless but to make our citizens, companies, schools, and government more competitive in their dealings with counterparts and cities around the world.
Enhancing Competitiveness and Livelihoods
To encourage people to subscribe to the WiFly Service, the city is encouraging Q-ware to create multi-tiered subscription plans that depend on the type of service and use. We are also encouraging computer services companies to build business models around the system.
The network can also be accessed by mobile phones, enabling them to access cheap VoIP services. A hotel in Taipei that mainly caters to business clients has introduced an innovative offering using this feature. At check-in, the clerk offers a mobile phone to the guest, which then serves as an information center. The guest can contact the front desk anytime, using them as his personal assistant. Imagine if you are in Taipei on business and can't speak Mandarin. With this mobile phone, you can conveniently call the front desk for translation services. Also, if you are a large team, you can use the phones as walkie-talkies.
We have also equipped 11,000 classrooms in all 300 schools with computers. Today, every student can access the Internet from the classroom. Teachers have begun using the computers to teach their courses. In fact, in one elementary school, teachers provide briefings to parents about class structure and the course, prior to school beginning, by using the Internet. We have also seen teachers of calligraphy courses use the Internet to display pictures of the step-by-step process of building scrolls. The students can then view these pictures online and learn the process themselves. This is an excellent example of how the technology can be used to preserve traditional culture.
We have a wireless easy card system that can be used on 4,000 buses and in all public parking lots and on the subway. We have added a feature where students can use this easy card as a school ID card, which they can then use to make small purchases like meals and take out books from libraries. The other interesting feature of this card, especially for very young children, is that when a child passes through a school gate, the card activates a device that then sends a message to the parent's phone alerting him or her that the child has arrived in school. In case the parent is threatened for ransom for their child's life, they can easily check whether the child is in school and thereby deal with false threats very easily.
Finally, the latest models for our ambulance cars will have Wi-Fi connectivity, allowing the doctors, nurses, and paramedics on board to transmit real-time information about the patient's condition to the hospital, over the wireless network. This will allow the hospital team to make arrangements for the incoming patient accordingly. However the roadblock to this is that the current network requires driving speed be below 30 km/hour. This also applies to connectivity in the subways. However, once Wi-Fi is replaced by WiMAX, I think the problem will be solved.
City Government Efficiencies
Our ICT initiatives have helped reduce the size of the city government in terms of workforce. Now less people can do the same amount of work. However, as the problems we faced and workload continued to grow, mainly through the use of ICT (including becoming a completely paperless government) we were able to handle the situation. The city's budget for 2006 is actually less than the 1996 budget, and yet we have managed to deliver what we had promised to our citizens. How could we have done that? Exactly because of the use of ICT. I am a true believer in the technology. Technology is actually neutral, and it depends on how you can use it. If we use it right, it can serve us well.
The Role of the Leader Leader
I believe that the advent of the Internet is the third wave of revolutions?after the Industrial Revolution and the revolution brought on by the personal computer?where a small company can beat a large company and a small country can beat a large country. It has provided an opportunity for us not only to catch up with the West and follow it but to surpass it. City mayors have a responsibility to really catch up with the situation. Why? Because national competitiveness depends on the competitiveness of a city. The urbanization process is moving very fast. More people are working and living in cities. City mayors should mobilize the power and potential of the urban developers and lead the country into the future.
------
For more information on this and other upcoming W2i conferences, visit the Wireless Internet Institute (W2i) web site.
