Taiwanese lawmaker exposes wrongdoings at government

台灣立法委員揭露政府5G辦公室的不法行為

Lawmaker also raised concerns about invasion into Taiwan’s 5G equipment by Chinese supply chains


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Taiwanese legislator pointed out last week that the government’s heavy investment into 5G R&D has not only yielded a dismal ROI but has also opened a vulnerability to invasion by Chinese software into the country’s infrastructure, potentially endangering national security.

During a legislative meeting, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Tai-hua (林岱樺) exposed serious defects on the part of government-funded institutes with regard to the nation’s investment in 5G R&D.

Lin said the government created a fund of NT$20.4 billion (US$703.45 million) for a four-year 5G development plan, but she said institutes receiving money from the fund have not been performing well and the technology transfer as a result of their R&D has very little value.

She said the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and the Institute for Information Industry (III), which received a big chunk of the fund, have engaged in 5G research for five years, yet they have not been able to produce workable commercial 5G equipment.

The lawmaker pointed out that the institutes, which have invested NT$5 billion into developing core 5G technology, including the development of core networks and small cells, still have not generated revenue from the technology transfer of their research totaling NT$100 million.

She pointed out that ITRI’s research on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is supposed to reach the throughput of 1.3 Gbs, but instead its system currently only reached 200 Mbs.

Lin also raised concerns about a potential invasion into Taiwan’s 5G equipment by Chinese supply chains. She said the core technology of a 5G system is software, instead of hardware as in the case of 4G.

As ITRI has not been able to produce commercially viable 5G base stations, the domestic electronics industry has adopted software produced by Chinese supply chains for their FPGA-based 5G solutions. She cited the example of Lions Taiwan Technology Inc.

Lin said the company is a branch of a Chinese software development company registered in Hong Kong. She raised questions about the security of products produced by Taiwanese companies, such as Quanta Computer lnc. and Compal Inc., that have adopted Lions’ software.

The lawmaker said that if China used software to invade Taiwan’s infrastructure, such as the nation’s transportation, education, medical, and police systems, the effect would be crippling.

Lin also pointed out that Taiwan’s Wimax and 3G policies were a disaster five years ago, causing Taiwan’s 3G telecommunication industry to collapse. Now the same group of people who made the mistakes happens to be steering the country’s 5G projects.

She pointed out that the 5G office’s wrongdoings include using a scholar to chair project screenings as well as conflicts of interest surrounding the scholar’s screening decisions. The lawmaker also pointed out that most important projects awarded by the office have failed to pass stipulated standards, yet they have been successfully concluded under the protection of the 5G office.

Lin has asked for either the dissolution or total reform of the office.