The National Communications Commission (NCC) last week fined Asia Pacific Telecom Co (APT, 亞太電信) NT$1 million (US$33,091) for its 3G service coverage falling below a regulatory threshold.
The Telecommunications Act (電信法) requires that a telecom’s 3G service coverage rate be at least 75 percent, but the company’s coverage had fallen below 50 percent, which led to poor reception, NCC spokesman Weng Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said on Wednesday.
Weng said the commission in February received numerous complaints from users about Asia Pacific Telecom’s coverage.
An investigation by the commission found that the company’s 3G service coverage rate was 46.9 percent, he said.
“We tested the company’s base stations, and found that base stations suffered power failures and the company failed to repair malfunctioning stations, leading to lower reception quality,” he said, adding that the commission requested the company to address the issues within three months.
APT, a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), has about 2,100 3G subscribers.
It was the first time a telecom was fined for poor reception.
The commission has proposed two solutions to APT: It can either improve the reception of its 3G service, which uses Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, or use 4G signals, Weng said.
The 4G system uses long-term evolution (LTE) technology, he said.
“The company should not compromise the quality of service offered to its 3G service subscribers. If it ends the transmission of 3G signals before the 3G license expires, it must ensure that the subscribers have a seamless migration from 3G to 4G service,” Weng said.
While saying it respects the commission’s ruling, APT issued two statements saying that the government should take into account the discrepancy between the company’s 3G service coverage and its number of 3G subscribers.
A CDMA base station consumes an average of 1,500 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month, company statistics showed.
The electricity used by all CDMA stations exceeds 48.6 million kilowatt-hours, the company said, adding that the resources are being used to serve only 2,100 3G subscribers.
Only about 1,000 of those subscribers are active users, APT added.
The company said that CDMA technology uses the 850 megahertz frequency band, which is close to the LTE band at 900 megahertz.
“As CDMA and LTE stations are installed on rooftops, which have limited space, they are likely to interfere with one another,” the company said, adding that that is why the service coverage rate of 3G services had fallen to 46.9 percent.
The company said it would take necessary measures to reduce interference from its 4G stations.
AI SPLURGE: The four major US tech companies have lost more than US$950 billion in value since releasing earnings and outlooks, while equipment makers were gaining Four of the biggest US technology companies together have forecast capital expenditures that would reach about US$650 billion this year — a flood of cash earmarked for new data centers and all the gear within them. The spending planned by Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp, all in pursuit of dominance in the still-nascent market for artificial intelligence (AI) tools, is a boom without a parallel this century. Each of the companies’ estimates for this year is expected either near or surpass their budgets for the past three years combined. They would set a high-watermark for capital spending
China’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. “Companies would love to build 10 years’ worth of data center capacity within one or two years,” Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) cochief executive officer Zhao Haijun (趙海軍) said yesterday on a call with analysts. “As for what exactly these data centers will do, that hasn’t been fully thought through.” Moody’s Ratings projects that AI-related infrastructure investment would exceed US$3 trillion over the next five years, as developers pour eye-watering sums
Bank of America Corp nearly doubled its forecast for the nation’s economic growth this year, adding to a slew of upgrades even after a rip-roaring last year propelled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI). The firm lifted its projection to 8 percent from 4.5 percent on “relentless global demand” for the hardware that Taiwanese companies make, according to a note dated yesterday by analysts including Xiaoqing Pi (皮曉青). Taiwan’s GDP expanded 8.63 percent last year, the fastest pace since 2010. The increase “reflects our sustained optimism over Taiwan’s technology driven expansion and is reinforced by several recent developments,” including a more stable currency,
COLLABORATION: Taiwan and the US could jointly find solutions to weaknesses in supply chain resilience for critical materials, focusing on mining and initial refinement Taiwan is likely to purchase rare earths from the US in the future, and is also in talks with Australia and Canada to strengthen global rare earth supply chain security, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. Taiwan and the US last month concluded the sixth Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue, during which both sides signed a joint statement endorsing the principles of the Pax Silica Declaration, pledging to deepen cooperation in areas including critical minerals. At the time, Kung said the two sides would establish working groups to advance cooperation in areas including artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, critical materials and
RSS