The Riyadh Development Authority has gone live with the first stage of its ‘Smart City‘ program by switching on WiMax transceivers on Tahlia Street in downtown Riyadh.
The Deputy Governor of Riyadh claimed the city will become Saudi Arabia’s first full ‘smart city’. Riyadh City’s “Smart City” program, has already brought wireless Internet to the city’s main coffee shops and hotels. The first free-for-all WiFi Internet access point was turned on last month.
“This service will further our effort to enliven downtown and continue Riyadh’s aim of being a city at the cutting edge of technology innovations,” said Mohammed Saqer, Chief Executive Officer ITC.
The service, sponsored by Intel, the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) and the Riyadh Development Authority, seeks to revitalize communities through the WiMAX technology.
Meanwhile, Taipei’s Wi-Fi system, the world’s largest, with more than 4,200 antennas and counting, has fallen far short of expectations, reports the SF Chronicle.
The city has struggled to get subscribers to sign up for the service called WIFLY due to perceived performance issues, competition from free hotspots and a lack of applications.
According to the Chronicle, the city of 2.6 million has signed up an average of 20,000 monthly subscribers (at $12 a month) and about 10,000 subscribers with daily, weekly or monthly one-time passes. That’s well short of an initial projection of 250,000 overall average users that the operators had expected by the end of last year.
Taiwan seems undetered.
Alcatel was chosen by Taiwan’s largest telecommunications provider, Chunghwa Telecom, to deploy Taiwan’s first commercial Mobile WiMAX network in the densely populated metropolitan area of Taoyuan County. The country’s Mobile Taiwan (M-Taiwan) project (pdf), is intended to bring wireless broadband service across the nation; as well as introduce applications such as remote medical services and e-learning.
Meanwhile Nortel WiMAX gear was picked by Brazilian pay TV firm TVA to build a WiMAX trial network.
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