A number of rival carriers on Thursday sharply criticized a proposed alliance between Asia Pacific Telecom Co (亞太電信) and Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) that would allow 4G roaming for subscribers of the two companies.
The alliance is designed to expand 4G services beyond the six special municipalities covered by Asia Pacific Telecom, a latecomer to the race for the latest generation of mobile broadband technology.
Under the proposed data roaming arrangement between the two carriers, subscribers who venture beyond Asia Pacific’s covered zones into more rural areas will still have access to mobile broadband via Taiwan Mobile’s 4G network.
However, Taiwan Star Telecom Corp (台灣之星) president Cliff Lai (賴弦五) cried foul, saying that such an arrangement would cause serious disruptions in the entire telecom sector.
“Should carriers be allowed to skirt the obligations of committing to the massive costs of building network infrastructure after acquiring operating licenses for their 4G frequency blocks?” Lai asked.
“The alliance is tantamount to opening Pandora’s box,” he added.
Taiwan Star had earlier filed a motion with the National Communications Commission to halt the alliance.
Lai hinted that the nation’s two other major telecom operators — Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) — were also investigating the matter.
He said the privacy of Asia Pacific subscribers might be compromised if their mobile devices have to access another carrier’s network for data roaming.
Asia Pacific currently offers 4G contracts at significantly lower monthly rates than other carriers, which is believed to be a contentious issue in the telecom industry.
In response to the criticism, Taiwan Mobile said the alliance is aimed at covering gaps in Asia Telecom’s 4G coverage, and that the two companies do not intend to share their core network assets. Taiwan Mobile added that it is willing to extend the arrangement to other carriers and collaborate with them.
Asia Pacific said in a statement filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday that it did not violate any rules by offering roaming service on Taiwan Mobile’s network.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to