Chunghwa Telecom considering new high-speed wireless Internet service

Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) may start the nation's first high-speed wireless Internet service to cellular phones by late in the third quarter, chairman Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) said in an interview.

The company paid NT$10.2 billion (US$303.8 million) for a government license to provide the service, which it originally planned to introduce in the middle of last year after starting to build the first stage of a NT$30 billion network in October 2002.

Chunghwa Telecom's sales increased to NT$15.2 billion in May from NT$14.9 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Sales were NT$15.3 billion in April.

In Asia, so-called third-generation, or 3G, services have started in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. Operators elsewhere probably won't follow suit until they see the commercial success of the early adopters, according to Terry Cheng (程天縱), Asia president of Texas Instruments Inc, the world's biggest maker of chips used in mobile phones.

Third-generation services allow mobile-phone users faster access to e-mail, video, games and music.

"Operators haven't found a happy medium between what customers want and what they're prepared to pay for," said Dominic Grant, an analyst with ING Financial Markets in Taipei.

Handsets for the so-called 3G networks have also been scarce, which could delay the service again, Hochen said. "We have considerations about the availability of handsets and market acceptance in the rest of the world,"he said.

Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大), the nation's second-ranked service provider by subscribers, said it doesn't plan to offer 3G services until the end of this year at the earliest.

Taiwan Cellular's startup depends on market demand and readiness of the technology, said Shirley Chu (朱顯宜), senior investor relations manager at Taiwan Cellular.

Far Eastone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), the country's No. 3 mobile-phone operator, said it plans to start 3G network services early next year, according to company spokeswoman Yvonne Lan (藍綺萍).

The company is waiting for handsets that will work with the global system for mobile communications, or GSM, used at present and the wideband CDMA technology that the third-generation phones will use.

Taiwan had 23.6 million mobile-phone subscribers as of March, the most recent period for which the Ministry of Transportation and Communications has provided statistics.

Subscribers outnumber the 22.6 million population because some users have more than one cellphone.

Chunghwa Telecom has a 34 percent share of the nation's cellphone subscribers, followed by Taiwan Cellular, with 32 percent, and Far Eastone, with 31 percent, based on the ministry statistics.