The NEC Corp. has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs to found a mobile WiMAX research center in Taiwan. The Multimedia E2E R&D Center will be established in Taipei during 2007 as part of the M-Taiwan project being lead by the Taiwanese Government.
M-Taiwan is a national project to establish a networked information society and to cultivate IT-related industries in the domestic market.
The country aims to upgrade its IT infrastructure based on wireless broadband application technology and cultivate domestic industries related to WiMAX — two major objectives of the M-Taiwan project.
End-to-end live wireless development environments, using NEC’s WiMAX base stations and application service platforms, will be provided at the new centre. It will be open to local equipment vendors to enable the implementation of interoperability tests, supporting service providers and software vendors in the development and verification of application services. Demonstration results will be fed back to enable further development by NEC.
Currently, NEC is conducting a WiMAX trial as part of the M-Taiwan project with the Tatung Co. and has demonstrated internet access and video streaming in Hualien City. As a result, Tatung plans to acquire an official WiMAX business license in June.
By building on these collaborations with Taiwanese WiMAX-related industries and by leveraging its experience and achievements in the country, NEC plans to pioneer the global expansion of WiMAX business.