The Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC) must terminate its Formosa Network and Music Network broadcasts next month after the Supreme Administrative Court denied the company’s motion to prevent the National Communications Commission (NCC) from acquiring the frequencies used to air the two networks, the commission said yesterday.
The commission will revoke the broadcast licenses for both networks, as well as the licenses of any BCC stations that air the networks after the official court ruling, NCC spokesperson Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said, adding that BCC should immediately terminate the networks’ operations after they when they receive the official notifications from the commission.
According to the commission, the frequencies were assigned to BCC by the government to curb communist radio broadcasts from China.
As the special task force has been terminated, the commission in 2007 asked BCC chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) to return the frequencies, which should have been done after the government reassigned them to other operators.
The Executive Yuan officially approved the NCC’s proposed plan to reassign the radio frequencies to the Hakka Affairs Council and the Council of Indigenous Peoples in August last year.
The NCC granted both agencies permission to establish radio stations and officially reassigned the frequencies to them in November and December last year.
The BCC was simultaneously informed that its licenses would be revoked and it should stop using those frequencies by Saturday next week.
The company responded by filing a lawsuit.
Wong said that the Hakka Affairs Council and the Council of Indigenous Peoples are scheduled to begin trial broadcasts in May and August, respectively.
If the BCC networks continue broadcasting after their licenses are revoked the company’s executives could be penalized with detention or a fine of no more than NT$200,000 for arbitrary use of or altering of a radio frequency without authorization, as stipulated by Article 58 of the Telecommunications Act (電信法), Wong said.
The article also stipulates that anyone who illegally sets up or uses a radio frequency or TV station can be sentenced to not more than two years prison, or a fine of not more than NT$600,000.
Meanwhile, the NCC said that it is scheduled to release the results of an Internet service speed test in July, adding that consumers could look up each telecom company’s average Internet service speed in each county.
Wong said that the commission began testing Internet service speeds in 2013 on the 3G network.
The commission released the results in 2014 and last year, although the reports did not specify the performance of each telecom.
The commission did not release 2015’s results because 4G service coverage was limited, and Taiwan Mobile leased its network to Asia Pacific Telecom, so the results would not be relevant to consumers, he said.
“We want to release this year’s report because the service has been used for three years and disputes between Taiwan Mobile and Asia Pacific Telecom have been resolved,” Wong said, adding that the move was being made in line with the government’s open data policy.
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