Two local cable television operators yesterday were reconsidering their plans to launch digital cable services in Taipei City after the city government set a price cap on the set-top descrambler box.
The city government's Cable TV Fee Review Committee on Tuesday fixed the price of the de-scramblers at NT$3,500, which is NT$1,500 to NT$2,000 lower than cable companies originally proposed for sale to subscribers.
The descramblers are devices that can decode dozens of digital channels transmitted to subscribers' houses.
The city government also ruled that the box fee is refundable when subscribers cancel their digital cable services.
For those who do not want to pay for the full charge, they can rent the boxes at the rate of NT$140 per month with a deposit of no more than NT$525, according to the city government.
The rules quickly drew sour reactions from cable operators yesterday.
"We are still evaluating if we are going to accept the deal," said Sonia Yang (
China Network Systems laun-ched their digital service in Keelung City this June, and has since gained approximately 1,000 subscribers to date.
It charged a NT$6,000 sale price for the box or a monthly rental fee of NT$175. The company proposed the same rate for Taipei consumers.
"We do not manufacture the boxes ourselves and we therefore have limited control over providing our customers with reasonable prices," Yang said.
Nonetheless, the company may lose money if they are forced to shoulder the consumers' costs as it wants to expand the market, she added.
Another major cable operator, Eastern Multimedia Co (
Eastern Multimedia proposed charging NT$5,000 for the set-top boxes.
The current cable services charge NT$550 per month. There are about 800,000 household cable TV subscribers in Taipei City, of which 700,000 are users of Eastern Multimedia and China Network Systems.
Chen Cheng-yi (
"The only way to reduce the box price for the two companies is to purchase a massive number of boxes at once, but they dare not to take the risk, as the market for the new service is still small at this stage," Chen said.
However, if the two suppliers decide to quit the Taipei market, their investments on the digital service infrastructure in the area will go down the drain, Chen said.
The Consumers' Foundation (
"We're glad to see the government defending consumers' interests by lowering the price of the box," said Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏), secretary-general of the foundation.
The latest survey conducted in August in Keelung showed that 199 out of 200 subscribers polled were disappointed at the paid-channels.
Therefore, "the next issue which we are going to focus on is whether the programs and service to be provided are commensurate to the charge," Cheng said.
AI TALENT: No financial details were released about the deal, in which top Groq executives, including its CEO, would join Nvidia to help advance the technology Nvidia Corp has agreed to a licensing deal with artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Groq, furthering its investments in companies connected to the AI boom and gaining the right to add a new type of technology to its products. The world’s largest publicly traded company has paid for the right to use Groq’s technology and is to integrate its chip design into future products. Some of the start-up’s executives are leaving to join Nvidia to help with that effort, the companies said. Groq would continue as an independent company with a new chief executive, it said on Wednesday in a post on its Web
RESPONSE: The Japanese Ministry of Finance might have to intervene in the currency markets should the yen keep weakening toward the 160 level against the US dollar Japan’s chief currency official yesterday sent a warning on recent foreign exchange moves, after the yen weakened against the US dollar following Friday last week’s Bank of Japan (BOJ) decision. “We’re seeing one-directional, sudden moves especially after last week’s monetary policy meeting, so I’m deeply concerned,” Japanese Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs Atsushi Mimura told reporters. “We’d like to take appropriate responses against excessive moves.” The central bank on Friday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years, but Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda chose to keep his options open rather than bolster the yen,
Even as the US is embarked on a bitter rivalry with China over the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), Chinese technology is quietly making inroads into the US market. Despite considerable geopolitical tensions, Chinese open-source AI models are winning over a growing number of programmers and companies in the US. These are different from the closed generative AI models that have become household names — ChatGPT-maker OpenAI or Google’s Gemini — whose inner workings are fiercely protected. In contrast, “open” models offered by many Chinese rivals, from Alibaba (阿里巴巴) to DeepSeek (深度求索), allow programmers to customize parts of the software to suit their
Global server shipments are expected to surge to 15 million units next year, from 4 million units this year, with artificial intelligence (AI) servers accounting for about 30 percent, driven by massive capital spending by major cloud service providers, the Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute (MIC) said on Thursday last week. Major cloud service providers — including Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc, Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Meta Platforms Inc — are projected to budget US$450 million for capital expenditure next year, up from US$400 million this year, MIC ICT [information and communications technology] Industry Research Center director Edward Lin
RSS