Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), the nation's second-largest mobile-phone carrier after Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大), said it signed a consultancy pact with NTT DoCoMo Inc yesterday to launch a third-generation (3G) mobile network in Taiwan this year.
Under the agreement, NTT DoCoMo will offer its technical support to Far EasTone in offering Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) phone services here, Far EasTone said in a statement yesterday.
Far EasTone, which acquired smaller rival KG Telecommunications Co (
DoCoMo has invested ?68 billion (US$613 million) since November 2000 on buying a 21.4 percent-stake in KG Telecom. The company now owns a 4.9 percent stake in the combined company.
"Through the partnership with NTT DoCoMo, the world's first successfully launched 3G mobile service based on W-CDMA, we can leverage their technical knowledge and experience in advanced mobile multimedia services," Far EasTone chairman Douglas Hsu (
DoCoMo will dispatch engineers to Taiwan to help with a 3G field test and coverage optimization from late March to late September, according to Far EasTone.
The deal may also benefit DoCoMo, as the Tokyo-based company hopes to expand the use of its services around the world.
"By creating a partner in W-CDMA carriers, we have opened a road to our entrance into the Taiwanese market," the AFP reported DoCoMo spokesman Nobuo Hori as saying.
The consultancy deal follows an agreement in principle between DoCoMo and Far EasTone last October to cooperate in the field of W-CDMA and the Japanese carrier's i-mode proprietary cellular Internet access technology.
KG Telecom introduced i-mode services to Taiwan in June 2002, allowing users to browse the Internet, exchange e-mail and download applications via i-mode handsets.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
RSS