The National Communications Commission (NCC) expects the nation’s five telecoms to all participate in a 5G spectrum auction at the end of this year, NCC Acting Chairman Chen Yaw-shyang (陳耀祥) said on Tuesday, adding that no non-telecom operators have expressed an interest in the auction.
The commission would accept public tender applications until Oct. 3, Chen added.
Chen made the remarks on the sidelines of a 5G service forum.
The five are Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile, Far Eastern Telecommunications, Taiwan Star and Asia-Pacific Telecom.
Last month, the commission announced that the minimum bids for frequency blocks in the 3.5 gigahertz (GHz), 2.8GHZ and 1.8GHz ranges would total NT$30 billion (US$960.9 million)
The Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法), which is scheduled to be implemented on July 1 next year, would treat all telecoms equally, Chen said, adding that the act would allow those that do not own spectrum to offer telecom services as long as they fulfill the legal requirements set by the commission.
However, those that obtain spectrum would be obligated to build infrastructure to use it, he said, adding that how they cooperate with other telecoms would depend on their business model.
The new technology requires more bandwidth and operates at higher speeds than 4G, enabling more connectivity and lower latency, he said.
“The deployment of 5G would not be limited to the telecommunications industry. It will facilitate the integration of different service fields and the creation of innovative service,” Chen said.
For example, the commission is working with the Taipei City Government to develop a smart transportation service that uses 5G technology, he said.
The technology could also be used to develop robots needed to address a personnel shortage in the long-term care industry, as well as various smart services, he added.
Asked why no telecommunications experts from China, one of the leaders in 5G technology, were at the forum, Chen said that 5G has emerged as one of the biggest areas of contention in a trade dispute between China and the US.
In matters related to China, the government would not only consider the development of Taiwan’s telecom industry, but also national security issues, he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods