Feb. 21 to Feb. 27
By the end of February 2000, Taiwan’s mobile phone users had surpassed those with landlines. It was a quick surge for the industry, as just three years prior the coverage rate was 7 percent, according to the 2001 book Covering the Sky with One Hand: The Telecommunications Wars between the Four Heavenly Kings (隻手遮天: 大哥大四天王的電信大戰) by Peng Shu-fen (彭淑芬).
By the end of 2000, it was at 75 percent.
Photo: Chang Ching-ya, Taipei Times
“Although the battle for the mobile phone market was fierce, compared to other foreign markets, [Taiwan’s] developed quite rationally,” Peng writes. “Unlike Hong Kong, for example, there was no bloody price war with no regard to costs. But even though that didn’t happen here, the competition still greatly drove down phone fees.”
The trigger to these events was the government’s opening of the cell phone market to private operators in 1997. Eight participants entered the initial fray: Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳), Mobitai Communications Co (東信), Transasia Telecommunications Inc (泛亞), Chung Hwa Telecom Co (中華), KG Telecommunications Co (和信), Tung Jung Telecom (東榮) and Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大). Tung Jung was the first to fall, bought out by KG in December 1998.
By the time of the book’s writing, Taiwan’s cell phone fees fell to among the lowest in the world. The competition also drove up customer care and service quality, leading Peng to conclude that the consumers were the biggest winners of this war. Peng added that the voice-calling market was saturated, and with the advent of 2.5G Internet the next step would be moving toward data transmission.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
EXCLUSIVE COMMODITY
Before 1997, the Directorate General of Telecommunications had a monopoly over phone usage in Taiwan. Cell phones were extremely expensive — one could cost over NT$100,000. Even if you had the cash, there were long lines to obtain a phone number — the waiting list was up to about 1 million people by 1997. If you were desperate, you could buy a number off someone for as much as NT$50,000.
As an alternative, private companies tried to promote the CT2 system, a short-range mobile phone that used terrestrial base stations. People were excited and tempted by the companies’ inflated promises, paying in advance to reserve their spot and even hoping to run their own mini-operation through purchasing a costly personal base station.
This experiment ended in disappointment due to the limited range of the stations (a few hundred meters) and other technical difficulties such as the phone not working if one was moving too quickly. The users quickly returned their devices and the venture crashed.
The government finally passed the Telecommunications Act in July 1996, which aimed to open up the market to private businesses. The Directorate’s sales and business arm was separated into Chunghwa Telecom, with the goal of eventually becoming a private company (it made the transition in 2005).
The race was on. Taiwan Mobile started rolling out deals a month before the market opened, and reportedly had 15,000 customers signed up by opening day. The companies got innovative to compete against each other, offering all sorts of deals, special contracts and putting great effort into advertising.
There was still a gender balance in cell phone use at the beginning. A 1998 report by the Nielsen Corporation showed that 37 percent of men between the ages of 15 and 60 used a cell phone, while only 14 percent women did, although 20 percent expressed a desire to get one soon.
The report also found two main groups of users: those with higher incomes who wore the phone on their waist as a status symbol, and people such as salesmen who actually needed them for their jobs. It added that it would soon tap into the youth market.
Today only three of the original eight remain — Taiwan Mobile purchased Mobitai in 2004 and TransAsia in 2008, while KG was bought out by Far EasTone in 2010.
SHOWING OFF
By the end of February 2000, there were an estimated 12,180,000 cell phone users in Taiwan.
Of course, such a sudden proliferation of the technology brought problems, many of which persist today. Phone etiquette was a big issue, as discussed in the 2000 “Study on Improper Use of Cell Phones in Public Spaces (台灣公共空間內使用大哥大不當行為之探討) by Tseng Shih-yuan (曾士原).
Everyone who had one wanted to show off their new gadget, and they hung them by their waists and talked on them as much and as loud as they could, Tseng writes. It was not uncommon to see people slamming their large, seemingly indestructible phones onto the table as they arrived at a restaurant, yakking on them loudly throughout the course of the meal.
“If talking on the cell phone itself has become a fashionable leisure activity, or an action that one just can’t help showing off to the public, this means that our [already noisy] public spaces will have no chance of becoming quieter.” Tseng writes.
Before authorities clamped down on the practice, phones rang during class, in the library or at movie theaters — one interviewee said that he had heard at least 10 phones ringing during a screening.
This extreme visibility and showing off definitely hastened the popularity of mobile phones, Tseng writes.
“If someone calls you all the time, that suggests that your ability, importance and popularity are top notch,” Tseng writes. “When a cell phone becomes the symbol of how important you are, then even those who don’t actually need cell phones would be eager to have one too.”
Two decades later, this behavior has waned significantly, though it still persists.
Taiwan in Time, a column about Taiwan’s history that is published every Sunday, spotlights important or interesting events around the nation that either have anniversaries this week or are tied to current events.
This year will go down in the history books. Taiwan faces enormous turmoil and uncertainty in the coming months. Which political parties are in a good position to handle big changes? All of the main parties are beset with challenges. Taking stock, this column examined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) (“Huang Kuo-chang’s choking the life out of the TPP,” May 28, page 12), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (“Challenges amid choppy waters for the DPP,” June 14, page 12) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (“KMT struggles to seize opportunities as ‘interesting times’ loom,” June 20, page 11). Times like these can
June 23 to June 29 After capturing the walled city of Hsinchu on June 22, 1895, the Japanese hoped to quickly push south and seize control of Taiwan’s entire west coast — but their advance was stalled for more than a month. Not only did local Hakka fighters continue to cause them headaches, resistance forces even attempted to retake the city three times. “We had planned to occupy Anping (Tainan) and Takao (Kaohsiung) as soon as possible, but ever since we took Hsinchu, nearby bandits proclaiming to be ‘righteous people’ (義民) have been destroying train tracks and electrical cables, and gathering in villages
Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8). Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any
One of the biggest sore spots in Taiwan’s historical friendship with the US came in 1979 when US president Jimmy Carter broke off formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan’s Republic of China (ROC) government so that the US could establish relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Taiwan’s derecognition came purely at China’s insistence, and the US took the deal. Retired American diplomat John Tkacik, who for almost decade surrounding that schism, from 1974 to 1982, worked in embassies in Taipei and Beijing and at the Taiwan Desk in Washington DC, recently argued in the Taipei Times that “President Carter’s derecognition
RSS