The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday vowed to push amendments to the outdated Cable Television Act (有線電視法) to facilitate the transition to a nationwide digital television service.
NCC planning department chief Ji Xiao-zheng (紀效正) said the commission’s goal of doing away with analog TV channels by 2013 would be carried out in three stages.
UNDER-USED
Although 20 percent of the nation’s households were supposed to have made the transition to digital television services by the end of last year, only 3.99 percent of households are using the digital service.
Ji said the department has been examining possible factors hindering the transition, such as the price of digital set-top boxes, and that the commission would consider a research report scheduled to be completed by next month before proposing amendments to the articles in the Cable Television Act to the Legislative Yuan.
SET-TOP BOX
Ji said some commissioners have proposed that cable television service providers be required to provide one free set-top box per family, provide additional set-top boxes at a reduced cost to people who buy or rent them and stop charging customers rental fees once the service providers have recovered the costs of the set-top boxes.
Earlier this month, the commission approved a draft amendment to the Radio and Television Act (衛星廣播電視法), which still needs to be reviewed by the Legislative Yuan.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
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