Taiwan's state-controlled Chunghwa Telecom plans to invest NT$100 billion ($3.1 billion) over the next five years to upgrade its network and further develop applications and services.
Chunghwa Telecom said it will spend half the money on infrastructure, replacing miles of copper phone lines with fiber-optic cable and the latest switches, said Hsu An-ling, a company spokeswoman.
The other half will go towards developing services and applications on the network designed around the idea of Web 2.0 (second-generation World Wide Web).
The plan is a bid to build the island into a world Internet leader. Taiwan has already rolled out Wi-Fi in Taipei, its largest city, and plans to use WiMAX to turn the entire island into a wireless Internet zone in the future.
Chunghwa is a key player in the wireless and wireline build-ups on the island. It is one of two companies offering Wi-Fi across Taipei.
Chunghwa also plans to continue building on Web 2.0 projects already up and running, such as Xsuite, which offers users drawing applications, blogs, Vblogs, photo diaries and other services.
The company will also begin to transfer voice phone calls to Internet protocol from traditional switch lines, continue to build its television and movie broadcasting service and delve into other multimedia services.