Close to 50,000 subscribers of Chunghwa Telecom’s high-speed Internet service are to enjoy reduced monthly fees after the National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday approved its new rate plan.
The new plan covers three service categories — 300 megabits per second (Mbps), 500Mbps and 1 gigabits per second (1Gbps), NCC spokesman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said.
The nation’s largest telecom company not only dropped the nominal prices for the three services, but also plans to offer even lower promotional fares, Wong said.
Based on the approved rate plan, the nominal price of the 300M/100M service has been reduced from NT$1,699 to NT$1,399 per month. The nominal prices for 500M/250M and 1G/600M are also to drop from NT$2,399 to NT$1,799 and from NT$2,599 to NT$2,399 respectively.
The company plans to further lower monthly fees to NT$1,199, NT$1,599 and NT$2,199 to attract new subscribers.
NCC data showed that Chunghwa Telecom currently has 48,014 subscribers for the 300M/100M service, 1,381 for 500M/250M and 562 for 1G/600M.
All subscribers are to benefit from the new rate plan, Wong said.
Wong attributed the significant fee adjustment to competition from cable service operators.
Due to the digitization of cable services, cable operators are able to offer 500Mbps broadband service at NT$799 per month, he said.
In 2011, consumers had to pay about NT$2,000 to NT$3,000 per month for 100Mbps Internet access service, but because of competition, prices for the same service have dropped below NT$1,000 per month, he said.
“This shows that consumers benefit from competition among different platforms,” Wong said.
The price of fixed network Internet service has also dropped because of increasingly popular mobile Internet service, as most telecom carriers offer unlimited data service at low prices, he said.
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