First International Telecom Corp (大眾電信), the nation’s sole personal handy-phone system (PHS) provider, is on the verge of terminating operations, as the company said yesterday that its five-year restructuring efforts have failed.
In a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the company said that it did not plan to extend its efforts before tomorrow’s deadline.
PHS was a popular service in Taiwan several years ago and First International Telecom — the only telecom operator using the 1,900MHz frequency — at one point had about 1.5 million users.
However, the number of PHS users has plummeted to less than 100,000 due to the rising popularity of smartphones.
The company sought court approval to restructure in March 2009 and began its efforts to revamp its business model and worked hard to raise new funds to improve its capital.
However, at a restructuring meeting last week, all participants agreed that the company could not meet its objectives and it would be better to call it quits.
The company said in the filing that all seven board directors, including former chairman Ming Chien (簡明仁), had resigned. Two independent directors have also quit, a filing showed.
Deloitte Taiwan’s accountants are also being discharged, the filing said.
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