Motorola wins work in Taiwan

Motorola said Monday it won orders to provide wireless Internet network equipment to Taiwan's Far Eastone Telecommunications Co.

Far Eastone, Taiwan's third-largest phone company, plans to begin rolling out a network using so-called WiMax technology this month, Schaumburg-based Motorola said in a statement on its Web site. A second phase of the project will probably be completed in early 2008, it said.

Underlying the M-Taiwan project is a WiMAX "ecosystem" that creates a city-wide broadband network needed to roll out integrated mobile services, Jeffey Gee, executive vice president of network technology for Far EasTone, said in the statement.

In July, Taiwan's government awarded licenses to six companies, including Far Eastone and Tatung Co., to operate wireless services based on WiMax, which allows data to be transferred at speeds of up to 40 megabits per second, faster than third-generation mobile-phone networks.

Taipei-based Far Eastone agreed to pay 4.2 percent of its revenue from WiMax services to get the license, according to government data.

Far Eastone's planned WiMax network is the largest in Taiwan, according to Motorola's statement, which did not specify the size of the investment.

The WiMax technology is expected to support Internet access at speeds up to five times faster than typical wireless networks, though it is still slower than wired broadband.