Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s leading telecom, yesterday said it plans to increase the number of its 4G base stations by 40 percent this year, mostly in urban areas, in an effort to boost data transmission speed.
Chunghwa’s announcement came as the company’s 4G bandwidth is set to expand to 130 megahertz (MHz), after the company upgraded two 2G spectrums on the 1,800 MHz band to 4G, following the discontinuation of 2G licenses on June 30.
Chunghwa Telecom also plans to offer four-carrier aggregation (4Ca) services at the end of this month to boost Internet connection speeds by including some configurations that utilize two new spectrums.
The company is to be the first local carrier to offer services using 4Ca technology.
It expects to accelerate Internet connections to up to 500 megabits per second (Mbps), compared with the 300Mbps of 3Ca technology.
The ultrafast 4Ca services are to be available first in urban and commercial areas in Greater Taipei and some northern Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (HSRC, 台灣高鐵) stations, a company statement released yesterday said.
By the end of the year, the service is to be extended to all metropolitan areas and 20 more commercial areas throughout the nation, as well as all 12 HSRC stations, the company said.
The telecom also plans to deploy UMTS 900 base stations in its 900MHz band in remote areas of the nation to allow its subscribers in those areas to make voice calls on the 4G network after 2G networks have been shut down.
Upon the completion of the deployment, the number of Chunghwa’s 4G base stations this year will be 1.4 times that of last year’s, the company said.
As of March 31, Chungwha Telecom had 7.12 million 4G users, accounting for 66 percent of its total mobile subscribers.
The company has budgeted NT$30.3 billion (US$993.77 million) for capital spending this year, primarily for fiber optical and 4G network deployment.
The figure is about 29 percent higher than last year’s capital expenditure of NT$23.5 billion.
Chunghwa Telecom earlier this month posted net profit for the first six months of NT$20.04 billion, down 11.8 percent from the NT$22.73 billion registered in the same period last year.
That translated into earnings per share (EPS) of NT$2.58, down from EPS of NT$2.93 in the same period last year.
Revenue fell 2.6 percent annually to NT$110.2 billion in the first half, from NT$113.14 billion in the same period last year.
Chunghwa Telecom shares were unchanged at NT$109 yesterday, while the TAIEX rose 0.05 percent.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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