The National Communications Commission yesterday said it would not oppose plans by Chunghwa Telecom to introduce a tiered service program for its mobile Internet service, but added that the carrier must address issues related to complaints of slow transmission speeds and unstable connections.
Some of Chunghwa’s 3G users have complained about slow mobile Internet service in certain locations and have even had their 3G connection drop out on some occasions.
Angry users have launched a protest on Facebook, accusing the carrier of overcharging its customers for “lousy service.”
In response, commission spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said it would seek to determine the nature of the complaints and determine if the carrier had solutions to address them.
Chen said some of the members of the commission had met Chunghwa officials on Tuesday and they had asked the carrier to look into what actions it could take to prevent users from hogging bandwidth.
Meanwhile, Chunghwa was asked to review its unlimited mobile Internet service plans, Chen said.
“We will review Chunghwa’s proposals to maintain service quality, as well as its tiered service plan, before we make any final decision,” Chen said.
Chunghwa said some users downloaded as much as 1 gigabyte (GB) of media content with their mobile devices. Those using 3.5G mobile Internet cards could even download up to 6GB.
To prevent high-bandwidth users from slowing down the entire network, Chunghwa plans to charge higher rates for faster mobile Internet connection speeds.
Addressing criticism from some telecoms carriers that the commission has been slow to process applications for the construction of additional base stations, Chen said the commission needed to follow the appropriate procedures when processing any application.
Chen said telecoms carriers would be encouraged to jointly build and share the use of base stations to ensure that service quality would not be compromised and to alleviate concerns about any health risks posed by electromagnetic waves.
Special consideration would be given to applications if a telecoms company proposes to build a new site, he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching