Chunghwa Telecom Co (
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 (
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 (
Taiwan Cellular's startup depends on market demand and readiness of the technology, said Shirley Chu (
Far Eastone Telecommunications Co (
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.
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