The number of people using broadband Internet, such as Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) services, had increased by 30 percent last month from six months ago, but user satisfaction dropped by 14 percent over the same period due to slow connection speeds and dropped connections, according to an Internet usage survey released yesterday.
"While the number of ADSL subscribers rose to 3 million households last month [from 2.3 million last July], user satisfaction dropped to 57 percent from 71 percent," Liu Yu-li (劉幼俐), a professor of communications at National Chengchi University, said at a press conference yesterday.
"Most people think they deserve faster connections and cheaper rates than the services currently offered," Liu said.
Chunghwa Telecom Co (
Chunghwa Telecom controls the "last mile" connections to most households, and they are able to refuse access to competitors.
While the nation's telecom regulator, the Directorate General of Telecommunications, has asked the state-run firm to open up its control over "last mile" connections, the company has not acted to change the situation because of strong opposition from its labor union.
Asked about declining customer satisfaction, a Chunghwa Telecom official said his company launched a promotion to provide customers with 30 percent faster ADSL services at cheaper prices at the beginning of this month.
"Around 800,000 subscribers with 1.5Mb per second service -- which costs NT$1,198 per month -- can upgrade their service to 2.0Mb per second for NT$1,098," said the official, who asked to remain anonymous.
Nevertheless, Chunghwa's monopoly on "last mile" connections has allowed it to easily maintain its dominant position in the ADSL market. The company had 2.4 million ADSL subscribers last year, an increase of 740,000 subscribers from the previous year, the official said, adding that the company hopes to attract 600,000 more ADSL subscribers this year.
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],”
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy