The government is scheduled to complete its auction of its remaining bandwidth in the 2,500 megahertz (MHz) and 2,600MHz frequencies by November, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday, adding that the carriers that secure the frequencies must finish paying their bonds within a month.
A total of 190MHz in the upstream and downstream frequencies are to be released through the auction, including six blocks of 20MHz, two blocks of 10MHz and two blocks of 25MHz, commission spokesperson Yu Hsiao-cheng (虞孝成) said.
The frequencies are divided this way because telecoms said that it could maximize the efficiency of carrier aggregation technology and help raise transmission speeds, Yu said.
The two 25MHz blocks are reserved for so-called time division long-term evolution (TD-LTE) technology, and the carriers securing either of the blocks must leave 5MHz of “guard bandwidth” to avoid disruptions from neighboring frequency blocks, he said.
The commission is to amend the Regulations Governing Mobile Telecommunications Businesses (行動寬頻業務管理規則) to require telecoms that obtain the frequencies to either build at least 1,000 high-speed transmission base stations or have the service cover at least 50 percent of the population in a service area before they are allowed to merge their operations, Yu added.
The amendment was written to prevent telecoms from only bidding for the frequencies without doing anything with them, he said.
However, the amendment will not be applied retroactively to telecoms that have already merged.
In related news, Taiwan Mobile Co was fined NT$3 million (US$97,500) for failing to inform the commission in advance about changes in its use of its second-generation network.
The commission said that Taiwan Mobile merged with Mobitai Communications Co and TransAsia Telecommunications, and then moved to consolidate the use of the core network without applying for permission.
It has penalized Taiwan Mobile three times, including yesterday’s action, the commission said.
The company was also ordered to submit — within two weeks — a plan to address the violation and must correct the situation within two months. The commission can continue penalizing the firm until it addresses the situation, or it may annul the firm’s service license if the company repeatedly fails to meet legal requirements.
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