The nation’s five telecom carriers yesterday competed to secure frequency blocks on the 3.5 gigahertz (GHz) band on the first day of the nation’s first 5G spectrum auction.
The National Communications Commission had said it plans to release 2,790 megahertz (MHz) of bandwidth for 5G services — 270MHz in the 3.5GHz band, 2,500MHz in the 28GHz band and 20MHz in the 1,800MHz band.
The bandwidth is divided into frequency blocks of 10MHz.
The highest bid for the 3.5GHz frequency band topped NT$26.58 billion (US$871.4 million) and NT$206 million for the 28GHz band, while there were no bids for the 1,800MHz band, NCC data showed.
The auction is to resume at 9am today.
The commission has a new method to facilitate the auction, where the telecoms first bid for the number of frequency blocks they need, NCC Acting Chairman Chen Yaw-shyang (陳耀祥) said.
There are to be 10 rounds of auctioning every day, he said, adding that a mechanism would compel telecoms to bid faster in the 51st and 101st rounds.
After telecoms secure the bandwidth they need, they would negotiate their preferable locations on the frequency band for seven days, Chen said.
Should telecoms fail to agree on the issue, they would enter the next round of auctioning for the bandwidths’ location.
“We hope the auction will end in one to two weeks,” Chen said.
Chen said that the commission had expected telecoms to compete fiercely for the frequency blocks on the 3.5GHz band, based on results of 5G auctions in other nations.
The commission has allocated funds to address the issue of interference that might occur between 3.3GHz and 3.57GHz, as part of the band is used for satellite communications, he said.
Telecoms would have to build more base stations than they did for the 4G system to offer 5G services, Chen said.
“In the initial stage, the number of 5G base stations would not increase too quickly, as telecoms can upgrade 4G base stations to meet demand,” he said.
“Overall, the number of base stations in the 5G era is expected to be three to four times that of the 4G era,” Chen added.
Regarding potential health hazards caused by electromagnetic waves emitted by the stations, Chen said the commission would handle this issue based on international standards, adding that it would work closely with the Environmental Protection Administration on the matter.
“People should not fear using technology as long as the risks are controllable,” Chen said.
As information security would become more important in the 5G era, telecoms should not only submit business plans, but also information security plans to the commission before they start offering the service, he said.
At least three telecoms would secure enough bandwidth to provide 5G services, Chen said.
“I believe that telecoms would set reasonable and competitive prices for 5G service by first consulting the international telecom benchmarks, as well as experiences in other nations,” he added.
Asked whether the commission would limit the funds that would be generated from the auction so as not to raise the operational costs of the telecoms, Chen said that the commission only set a floor price for the auction, adding that it has no way of knowing how high the bids will go.
“I am sure that they would take all factors into consideration when they place the bids,” he said.
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’: A man watching Taiwanese military drills said that there would be nothing anyone could do if the situation escalates in the Taiwan Strait Many people in Taiwan look upon China’s military exercises over the past week with calm resignation, doubting that war is imminent and if anything, feeling pride in their nation’s determination to defend itself. After a visit to Taiwan last week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China’s coast and missiles over Taipei and into waters surrounding the nation since Thursday last week. However, Rosa Chang, proudly watching her son take part in Taiwanese military exercises that included dozens of howitzers firing shells into the Taiwan Strait off
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical