Taiwan yesterday awarded eight cellular franchises to local consortia, most of them paired with global phone companies as as minority partners. The two island-wide franchises went to Far EastTone group, a partnership with AT&T Corp, and Pacific Telecommunications Systems, which aligns GTE Corp with Acer Inc, Pacific Electric Wire & Cable Ltd and Evergreen Marine Ltd; the AT&T consortium also won a second, regional license. The other regional franchises went to KG Telecom grouping Sprint Corp with Koo’s Group and Microelectronics Technology Inc; Asia Pacific Investment Co, in which SBC Communications Corp is teamed with Formosa Plastics Group Ltd; and Mobitai, in which the DeTe-Mobil unit Deutsche Telecom AG is the foreigner. Two of the regional franchises went to Smartlink, a Taiwanese consortium led by industrial giant Tuntex Ltd with no major foreign partner.
