With competition in Taiwan's fixed-line market heating up between telecom rivals, Taiwan Fixed Network Co (台灣固網) aims to take a chunk of the long-distance market from telecom goliath, state-run Chunghwa Telecom Inc (中華電信). Chunghwa holds a virtual monopoly on long-distance dialing -- but not for long.
"Taiwan Fixed Network vows to provide fast, quality communication services to customers," Taiwan Fixed Network president Anthony Knight said yesterday.
Chunghwa Telecom will face a barrage of new competition in next month when the big three contenders -- Taiwan Fixed Network Co, Eastern Broadband Telecom Corp (
Taiwan Fixed Network Co Chairman Jack Sun (
The new services include an 006 direct international dialing service, ADSL broadband communications, intelligent Internet services and an Internet database center, Sun said.
Currently international callers must use Chunghwa's 002 dialing prefix to gain overseas calling access. But the new 006 international calling prefix offers callers a new calling option, and is expected push the bureaucratic state-run telecom firm to improve services and drop rates. Taiwan Fixed Network is luring customers to subscribe to the service -- prior to the March launch -- by offering an international calling plan valued at NT$2,000 for NT$1,000.
Taiwan Fixed Network, which is capitalized at NT$92.2 billion has already installed 150,000 telecom lines in the three major metropolitan areas of Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung plus 12 secondary regions including Ilan, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, and Changhua. The company will start long distance operations before the end of the first quarter.
"Nothing can drive economic growth faster than development in telecommunication industry ... and Taiwan Fixed Network is confident in the market," Knight said.
However, the company admitted that since its network for domestic fixed phone lines has not yet been completed nationwide, it is not easy for the company to woo away Chunghwa Telecom's 12.5 million telephone subscribers at this stage. But, there is still room for more international dialing price cuts, the company said.
In response to the promotion plan, Chunghwa Telecom yesterday said that it will also lower its charges for international calls by 16 percent on average and from Taiwan to China by 60 percent, beginning in March.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day