TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Digital Minister Audrey Tang (唐鳳) on Monday (Sept. 12) introduced that Taiwan is beginning to established up a satellite network similar to the use of Starlink in Ukraine as a backup in the party China attempts to just take the region offline.


Throughout an job interview with BaoDao Radio host Clara Chou (周玉蔻), Tang described Taiwan’s “Communication Network Electronic Resilience Reinforcement with Reaction or Wartime Application Rising Technological know-how System,” which is intended to guarantee the ongoing operability of Taiwan communications networks in the occasion of a war or pure disaster. With the use of non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite units, Taiwan will be capable to guarantee that communications expert services these as video conferencing, Voice in excess of Internet Protocol, and livestreaming, can be taken care of, even with hurt or sabotage of submarine cables and phone networks.


Tang pointed out that early on in the Russo-Ukrainian war numerous fiber optic community cables had been badly weakened by Russian forces. In reaction to the dire have to have for web connectivity, Elon Musk furnished Ukraine with entry to his Starlink network totally free of cost with Ukrainian govt businesses, USAID, European nations around the world, and SpaceX furnishing many of the terminals to the general public.


The digital minister described that as extended as users can “see the sky” they can nevertheless accessibility the web with their Starlink satellite dish. Hence, Tang mentioned that the Taiwan governing administration is now formulating policies for the adoption of these a network and will get started accepting commercial applications commencing in November.


Tang said that simply because there is no professional NGSO community at the moment in operation in Taiwan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) will get started installing NGSO machines at 700 domestic places and a few intercontinental areas to perform testing. Tang predicted that when NGSO companies develop into commonly adopted, when a main disaster happens, customers will not have to have to established them up once more, and they can right away change to the satellite provider to obtain all telecommunications, as prolonged as there is a floor station nearby.


In accordance to Tang, irrespective of which telecommunications business a user’s mobile phone is tied to, they can be switched to the NGSO community to guarantee wireless reception at the time the infrastructure is in position.


She also emphasized that with the establishment of MODA, it will be less complicated to endorse NGSO providers. In the past, comparable procedures ended up promoted, but quite a few govt companies this kind of as the Nationwide Communications Fee (NCC) and the 5G personal community of the Ministry of Economic Affairs had to be coordinated at a higher cost. Now with MODA, these kinds of selections can be designed in a one meeting, explained Tang.





