US vendor Motorola said Monday that it has a major WiMAX infrastructure contract with Taiwanese operator Far EasTone (FET).

FET, which holds around a 33 per cent share of the local mobile market, is also a key player in the Taiwanese government’s M-Taiwan project – an initiative to create a standards compliant environment supporting services, education, and entertainment on a national level.

The contract will be the largest WiMAX network deployment to date in Taiwan and will be carried out in two phases. Phase one implementation will commence in this month and is expected to be completed by year end, while the second phase is expected to be completed in early 2008.

“Underlying the M-Taiwan project is a complete WiMAX ecosystem to create city-wide broadband network in order to roll out integrated mobile services,” said Jeffey Gee, executive vice president of Network Technology at Far EasTone. “As this is a crucial element of the project, we have turned to Motorola for its expertise to design, supply, and deploy a world-class network that will support a multi-vendor environment while enabling future growth as well.”