Taiwan's top phone company Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) said yesterday that it may raise annual capital spending to NT$30 billion (US$926 million) for the next few years in order to fund a large-scale equipment upgrading project.
That would make Chunghwa Telecom one of the leading fixed-line operators around the world by offering convergent telecom services on Internet Protocol instead of on circuits.
"To maintain our technological leadership in the local telecom industry, Chunghwa Telecom has decided to invest a total of NT$50 billion on equipment upgrading, over the next five years," chairman Hochen Tan (
Annual capital expenditures over the next few years would rise to around NT$25 billion and could even exceed NT$30 billion during certain years, compared to NT$22 billion-NT$23 billion in recent years, Hochen said.
Most of the additional capital would be use on replacing existing circuit switches for packet switches, Hochen said, adding that the equipment upgrading would begin in the second half of this year.
The new capital increase would be part of the telecom carrier's program to allocate approximately NT$120 billion by 2013 on building next generation networks (NGN).
Chunghwa Telecom hopes to complete the first part of the large-scale equipment upgrade by switching its fixed-line subscribers to NGN base in 2013.
"NGN will enable telecom companies to offer cutting-edge multimedia services on convergent fixed-line and mobile networks in the future," said Chunghwa Telecom spokesman Shih Mu-piao (石木標).
British Telecom Ltd took the lead in switching to NGN, while some telecom companies were making plans to do so Shih said.
During yesterday's anniversary ceremony, Chunghwa Telecom reacted positively to the nation's telecom regulator National Communications Commission's request last month to open its multimedia-on-demand (MOD) platform in exchange of carrying on the operation.
The NCC's decision made after the nation's major cable TV operators filed a complaint to the regulator accusing Chugnhwa Telecom of violating fair competition by offering subsidies for its new TV business and said that would pose a threat to their survival.
Chunghwa Telecom started airing television programs on its broadband networks in 2004.
Chunghwa Telecom yesterday signed letters of intent with five local colleges, including National Chengchi University, to jointly develop contents and services for Chunghwa Telecom's MOD platform.
"This is the first step for Chunghwa Telecom to open its platform for society. We believe the collaboration with the schools will not hurt the business of cable TV operators," Hochen said.
The company had garnered 120,000 users as of April and aimed to expand its customer base to approximately 250,000 by the end of this year, rather than the 500,000 subscribers estimate previously.
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