A newly drafted tiered-pricing plan for cable TV operators has failed to introduce more affordable and flexible services, but instead lined the pockets of providers, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said yesterday.
The National Communications Commission submitted the plan to the legislature in June.
The proposals would remove the NT$600 cap on monthly cable service fees and give cable operators more flexibility to deliver service packages, a move that the TSU described as pro-business.
The Legislative Yuan’s Transportation Committee, which was responsible for launching a review, did not do so.
The plan, albeit without a legislative review, is considered approved, as an administrative order should be automatically approved if a legislative review is not conducted within three months of an order being submitted to the legislature, the TSU said.
“The committee did not even raise a motion to discuss the plan, an oversight that affects the nation’s 5 million viewing households,” former TSU legislator Lai Chen-chang (賴振昌) said.
Although the plan is intended to introduce more affordable and flexible cable packages, it will have little effect on existing pricing practices, as most households still pay flat fees of about NT$550 per month for cable service access without being able to choose channels a la carte, TSU Publicity Department deputy director Chen Chia-lin (陳嘉霖) said.
While a major cable operator in southern Taiwan has offered three cable packages, there is hardly any price difference between the plans, at NT$580, NT$560 and NT$540, TSU Department of Organization director Chang Chao-lin (張兆林) said.
“Is there any difference between this ‘tiered-pricing’ and a flat rate?” Chang asked.
The TSU called on the government to require operators to offer low-priced packages so consumers are not forced to pay for channels they hardly ever watch.
“A basic package priced at NT$100 per month would be ideal for viewers who hardly watch anything other than basic channels,” Chen said, adding that such low-cost packages could save a household thousands of New Taiwan dollars per year.
When drafting the tiered-pricing plan, the commission dropped a popular option that would have required operators to offer basic packages for a maximum of NT$200 per month.
Without being required to provide basic packages, cable operators can continue to profit from the absence of more affordable and flexible cable plans on the market, the TSU said.
The commission held hearings about the plan before it was submitted, but none of the consumer rights groups took part in the hearings, the TSU said.
The removal of the price cap also deprives the commission of regulatory control over cable operators, the party said.
Lai called on the central government to order local governments to enforce an effective tiered-pricing scheme to reduce viewing costs to make up for the commission’s slack regulation.
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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