PC Home rolls out cheap, Web-based SMS service

There was good news for the nation's frequent short message service (SMS) users yesterday, as PC Home Online (網路家庭) rolled out a new SMS package for sending text messages via the Internet that is two-thirds cheaper than average market prices.

"We think that SMS should be regarded as a basic service to mobile communication users, and there's still room for further price cuts," Joyce Tzeng (曾淑華), PC Home's associate manager for public relations, said in a phone interview yesterday.

"Our charge of NT$1 for each message is a reasonable level for consumers ... and is as much as one-third of the market price," Tzeng said.

PC Home will now let mobile phone users send messages at that price through their Internet portal, the nation's fourth-largest. The charges appear on their mobile phone carrier's bill.

The new package also allows non-mobile phone users to send SMS via the Internet after paying at least NT$100 in advance, according to the company.

Users in Taiwan sent a total of 2.4 billion messages, generating total revenues of NT$6.4 billion last year, up from about 2.1 billion messages and revenues of NT$5.3 billion in 2002, according to statistics from the Directorate General of Telecommunication.

The nation's relatively high-priced SMS services, compared to other countries in the region, brought criticism from consumer associations earlier this year, forcing operators to reduce their prices by an average of 25 percent in May.

PC Home's goal of expanding its Web-based SMS business doesn't seem to worry the nation's major telecoms.

"The sending of mobile-to-mobile messages is always much more convenient than Internet-to-mobile SMS," said an official at Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信). who asked to remain anonymous.

Chunghwa had roughly 8.28 million mobile phone subscribers as of last month.