The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday issued a permit to construct a 4G telecom service network to Ambit Corp, a subsidiary of the Hon Hai/Foxconn Group, after it discontinued the use of telecom equipment produced by Shenzhen-based Huawei Technologies.
Products manufactured by Huawei have been blacklisted in several countries due to national security concerns. Asia Pacific Telecom, which merged with Ambit last month, also secured the network construction permit yesterday after supplying complementary information required by the commission.
Ambit and Asia Pacific are the last two of the six 4G service operators who have yet to obtain operating licenses.
Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile and Far EasTone Telecommunications launched their 4G services at the end of May and at the beginning of last month.
Taiwan Star, backed by Ting Hsin International Group, had also received a 4G operating license last month. Having merged with 3G service operator Vibo Telecom, Taiwan Star said it planned to launch the service in the third quarter of this year.
Though Ambit had submitted an application for the network construction permit in March, the NCC could not approve it because the company intended to use a core network facility made by Huawei. By law, the commission needs clearance from the national security agencies to approve the use of Chinese telecom network equipment.
The delay caused by the administrative review of the company’s network construction plan upset Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), who threatened to boycott paying taxes and move the group’s headquarters out of Taiwan if he failed to get a reasonable explanation as to why he cannot use Chinese telecom equipment.
Commission spokesperson Yu Hsiao-cheng (虞孝成) said that Ambit first applied for a construction permit on March 5 and that the application included a communication security and surveillance report from the Investigation Bureau.
Yu said the report indicated that the network Ambit planned to use would not generate national security concerns, and the application did not mention any use of telecom equipment made in China.
However, he said Ambit submitted a new application on March 12, in which it proposed the use of a different network. The commission then asked the company to produce a new copy of the communication security report from the Investigation Bureau, as the report it had attached only certified the security of the previous network it had planned to use.
“The company resubmitted the application on Monday, in which it stated that it plans to use the same network as indicated in its application filed on March 5,” Yu said. “Since we had almost completed the review of the previous March application, we can approve the application quickly this time.”
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the