Hoping to keep its edge in the mobile WiMax marketplace, Taiwanese officials on Monday announced that Taiwan will spend $664 million in a WiMax development program and that several additional companies have been added to its WiMax development programs.

The announcements came as WiMax suppliers from around the world converged on the 2007 WiMax Forum in Taiwan as the island's industry and government, already committed to dominating WiMax manufacturing, unveiled the wide area technology's first WiMax application lab.

In addition to plans to garner the lion's share of WiMax manufacturing, Taiwan is rolling out its ambitious M(mobile)-Taiwan program to cover the country with Mobile WiMax.

The Taiwan government noted that Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola, Nokia, Sprint Nextel, and Starent Networks have recently made commitments to Taiwan's WiMax effort. Navini Networks and Motorola have previously announced their involvement in Taiwan-based WiMax programs. Alcatel-Lucent has said it plans to open a research and development center in Taiwan.

Taiwan officials have noted that Taiwan dominated the Wi-Fi market with more than 90% of the technology's production, and they are also seeking to dominate WiMax manufacturing. The new application lab has been designed to provide an open environment to be used by developers to test new WiMax applications like VoIP and entertainment.

"The WiMax industry is addressing a new standard in a way no other industry or association has in the past," said Ron Resnick, an Intel executive who is president of the WiMax Forum, in a statement. "We are approaching WiMax technology much the same way that the innovators of the Internet built the World Wide Web, offering a truly open infrastructure where no single operator or service provider dominates the technology."

Resnick said five WiMax certification labs are scheduled to open by the end of the year, each with the capability of certifying a broad range of WiMax products.

Scores if not hundreds of fixed WiMax installations have been installed throughout the world, and even a few Mobile WiMax (802.16e) installations have been established both in the United States and internationally.

Some 50 companies are participating in this week's WiMax Forum program, including Agilent Technologies, Airspan Networks, Alvarion, ASUSTek Computer, Azimuth Systems, Fujitsu Microelectronics America, Gemtek Technology, Huawei Technologies, PicoChip, Quanta Computer, Redline Communications, Rohde & Schwarz, Samsung Electronics, Sanyo Electric, and Sequans Communications.