The National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday that neither Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) nor any of the nation’s telecom companies could invest in First International Telecom Corp (大眾電信).
The telecommunications regulator’s remarks came after the Chinese-language Economic Daily News said Chunghwa Telecom might offer financial support to First International Telecom following a meeting with the company’s founder, Chien Ming-jen (簡明仁), on Tuesday.
First International Telecom was one of the six operators that acquired the World Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) license after winning a public bid last year and is in the process of establishing the appropriate facilities.
While the company has run the personal handy phone service for about a decade, it has not launched the WiMAX service yet.
Andy Shieh (謝煥乾), deputy director of the NCC’s legal department, said that licenses and radio frequencies granted to a telecom operator could not be legally used as collateral or transferred to other operators unless specifically stated in the license terms.
The regulation is meant to ensure fairness for all candidates who originally bid for the licenses and to prevent any telecom company from acquiring a license through false or exaggerated plans of operation.
Once First International Telecom launches WiMAX services, it is entitled to attract interested investors or business partners, Shieh said.
On Tuesday, First International Telecom chairman Charlie Wu (吳清源) confirmed that the company had bounced NT$86 million (US$2.7 million) in checks to credit banks, telecom equipment suppliers and handset retailers.
The amount does not include the money it owes the NCC — more than NT$40 million.
The newspaper report also said that Chunghwa Telecom, which lost its bid for a WiMAX license last year, wanted to tap into the WiMAX market by controlling First International Telecom.
Earlier this year, First International tried to establish a subsidiary company to operate WiMAX services. The commission rejected its application, citing the same regulation as above.
In March, the commission rejected Chunghwa Telecom’s application to invest in the Global Mobile Corp (全球一動), one of the WiMAX license holders.
The commission said Chunghwa Telecom made the lowest bid during the competition. It would be unfair to other competitors if it entered the playing field now by investing in a WiMAX license holder, it said.
Chunghwa Telecom yesterday dismissed the speculation that it would bankroll the financially troubled First International by subscribing to preferential shares.
Chunghwa Telecom had not discussed the matter with First International or evaluated any potential investment, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
First International Telecom hopes to raise NT$1 billion by selling 200 million preferential shares next month. The company has accumulated around NT$3 billion in losses over the past years.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investment project in Arizona has progressed better than expected, but it still faces challenges such as water and labor shortages, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) said yesterday. Speaking with reporters after visiting TSMC’s Arizona hub and attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Maryland last week, Yeh said TSMC’s Arizona site turned a profit of NT$16.14 billion (US$514 million) last year in its first full year of mass production. “TSMC told me it was surprised by the smooth trial run of the first fab, which has left the company optimistic about the project’s outlook,”
RSS