Prospects for the nation’s fifth-generation wireless systems (5G) market would be unfavorable if telecoms engage in price wars instead of developing innovative services to sustain their businesses in the long term, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The warning came after Chunghwa Telecom introduced a fourth-generation (4G) service plan earlier this month that targets government workers, teachers, school staff and military personnel, charging users NT$499 per month for unlimited access to mobile Internet and unlimited phone calls between subscribers of the same network. Taiwan Mobile, Far EasTone Telecommunications and Asia-Pacific Telecom quickly followed suit, introducing the same plan to attract subscribers.
NCC spokesperson Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said that the commission respects a free market system, but added: “If telecoms simply want to boost their market shares and revenue by luring subscribers from competitors, rather than with innovative business models, it would not be positive for the development of 5G in the nation.”
“What they are doing does not help to make the pie bigger. They are not benefiting from innovative business models that could sustain them through the maintenance and operation of 4G services, the auctioning of the 5G service spectrum and finally commercial operation of 5G,” Wong said.
“That would hamper sustainable development of the nation’s telecommunications industry,” he added.
While carriers in other countries have sought to provide original content by buying content producers or have expanded their businesses overseas, Taiwanese telecoms are unlikely to do so, Wong said.
“Either none of them are big enough to develop their businesses overseas, or the acquisition of content providers is out of the question because of regulations that ban the government, political parties and the military from investing in media,” Wong said.
Carriers need to have courage and stop offering unlimited data and call service at unreasonably low prices, which would hurt their development in the long term, Wong said.
It is not the first time that telecoms have engaged in price competition to attract subscribers since 4G was launched in 2014. Average monthly fees dropped from about NT$1,300 to below NT$1,000 within one year of the service being launched, in a bid to motivate people to upgrade to 4G.
The tactic was revived last year, with prices dropping further to NT$599 per month.
NCC statistics showed that mobile carriers’ revenue has declined from NT$53.2 billion (US$1.81 billion) in the second quarter of 2016 to NT$49.4 billion in the fourth quarter of last year.
Apart from a continued decrease in revenue from voice communication and a rapid increase in data transmission, industry experts have also attributed the decline in revenue to an ongoing price war.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan
RSS