In Taiwan the phone companies there have been much more successful convincing their customers to buy a netbook with a data plan.  Things are going so well that some of these companies are going out and buying significant quantities of netbooks to help meet the need.

The biggest beneficiaries look to be Asus, Acer, Sony, and ECS.

Besides just by netbooks, the wider focus is on WiMax.  WiMax enables carriers to add another fee to a customers bill while providing the service for very little.  Since WiMax is faster and built differently than traditional 3G netbooks carriers are benefiting all over the world from it’s innovation and proliferation.

One thing the carriers will have to worry about is how the growth of netbook sales will impact sales of phones to people in Taiwan.  Netbooks are light and portable and once they connect to the web making a phone call using a service like Skype or typing a quick email can be just as effective for some people as having a phone.  Data revenue is higher margin than voice revenue but the goal is to get customers to add another line instead of using one or the other.

[Via CENS]

1. Global Netbook Sales To Reach 54 Million By 2015

2. What The Compaq AirLife 100 Means For Atom Netbooks; Wireless Carriers

3. Sprint To Team Up With Acer?

4. Carrier Subsidized Netbooks?

5. The VIA Openbook