The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has warned Taiwan Mobile and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co over comments that appear to show collusion on setting telecom service rates, but the National Communications Commission (NCC) said that the market is determining the pricing of mobile data plans.
In statements reported in the media, top officials at Taiwan Mobile and Far EasTone have on several occasions said that they plan to phase out low-cost unlimited 4G mobile data plans if the nation’s largest telecom, Chunghwa Telecom, first stops offering unlimited data plans at NT$700 or less, the FTC said.
Managers in both companies aimed to have all players in the market work in concert by alerting their peers of their actions via their public statements, the FTC said.
Chunghwa Telecom has previously said that it would monitor the monthly data collected from users to determine when its low-cost unlimited data contract options should be canceled, and that there had been no collaboration on prices among the top three carriers.
However, if Taiwan Mobile and Far EasTone continue to make statements reported in the media that subsequently cause Chunghwa Telecom to end or discontinue its discount data service plans and follow its precedent, the FTC said that this would constitute collusion among the three carriers.
Therefore, Taiwan Mobile and Far EasTone have been warned over their public statements, the FTC added.
However, the FTC’s threat to punish the two telecoms should they continue to make similar statements implies that the agency can ascertain that businesses engage in collusive behavior simply by analyzing their public statements, which analysts said might be difficult to prove.
The NCC, which regulates the industry, said that telecom service rates are determined by the market and it would not intervene in how carriers set their prices.
“Unlimited data plans offer users better services. We respect that carriers offer different service plans to satisfy the needs of different consumer demographics,” NCC spokesperson Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said.
However, telecoms are increasingly aware that the revenues they gain are disproportionate to the amount of resources they invest in their businesses, Wong said, adding that a price correction is expected.
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