On June 30, 2023, the NCC held the "2022 Awards Ceremony for Promoting Public Buildings and Land for Base Stations." Chairperson Chen Yaw-Shyang of NCC presented the awards, on behalf of Premier Chen of the Executive Yuan, to both central ministries and local governments including the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan (CA), Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), Taipei City Government, Hualien County Government, and New Taipei City Government. NCC called on all central ministries and local governments to continue their cooperation with the policies of the Executive Yuan, opening up public buildings and land for telecom operators to establish base stations and contribute to the ongoing construction of 5G network infrastructure, thereby enhancing the nation's digital competitiveness.
NCC emphasized that with the objectives of accelerating the development of mobile broadband communications network infrastructure and optimizing mobile communications signal coverage, the commission has actively coordinated with government agencies to open up public buildings and land for telecom operators to establish base stations since 2014. This initiative aims to provide the public with higher quality mobile internet service. According to NCC's statistics, during 2022, a total of 23 sites were released by government agencies for base station installations; consequently, from 2014 to the end of 2022, a grand total of 708 sites have been made available.
NCC took the opportunity to outline the cooperation of central ministries, including Chunghwa Post Co., Ltd. of the MOTC, which allows operators to improve the quality of communications near post offices. Similarly, the Taiwan Railways Administration of the MOTC has also assisted operators in optimizing signal coverage along railway lines. Furthermore, the Forestry Bureau of the CA complies with the Executive Yuan's policy of opening up mountains and forests and provides new base platforms on land in remote areas such as the Nanhui Highway, so that mountaineers and rural passers-by can still enjoy mobile communications services; The MOEA provides base stations for power plants, sugar factories and other premises to improve the mobile communications quality in the surrounding areas.
Turning to local governments,the Taipei City Government and the New Taipei City Government have made sites available for base stations, so that every citizen who visits the two cities can experience the convenience of digital services; additionally, NCC cooperates with telecom operators in Hualien County; the county government's plan is to provide medical and educational services to people in remote areas by means of the technical characteristics of 5G low-latency, broad-bandwidth, and wide-connection, so as to eliminate the digital gap between urban and rural areas, ultimately so that those living in such areas can also benefit from high-speed mobile communications.
NCC emphasized that in the 2023 World Competitiveness Evaluation Report released by the International Institute of Management (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland this year, Taiwan’s ranking rose to sixth from seventh the year previously. In addition, Opensignal, an internationally renowned evaluation organization, announced in June this year that Taiwan ranked third in the 43-country "5G Coverage Experience" ranking list. These outstanding achievements are attributed to the extensive and comprehensive infrastructure of mobile communications networks; as such, the awarded agencies have all contributed to the leading position of Taiwan's communications network.
5G networks play a crucial role in the development of applications such as smart cities, smart transportation, smart healthcare, smart education, and smart manufacturing. Therefore, in the future, it is still necessary for both the central and local governments to continue opening up public buildings and land for telecom operators to set up base stations, in order to continuously improve the coverage of Taiwan's 5G networks and promote the best possible environment for communications.
