Following a cut in the wholesale price for its Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) services last week, Chunghwa Telecom said it would reduce its subscriber fees, a move that was approved by the National Communications Commission yesterday.
About 3 million DSL users will benefit from the cut, with the percentage of the reduction ranging from 10 percent to 40 percent.
Commission spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said not only did Chunghwa agree to reduce its fees, but it also voluntarily upgraded the transmission speed of its DSL service.
Based on the plan submitted by Chunghwa, subscribers to its 512k/64k service will be upgraded to 1M/64K, but their monthly rate of NT$283 will remain unchanged. Those subscribing to the 3M/768K service will be upgraded to 4M/768K, with the fee dropping from NT$889 to NT$779 a month, while those subscribing to its 10M/2M service will be upgraded to 12M/3M and the monthly fee will drop by about 18 percent to NT$899 per month.
Users of the 20M/4M and 50M/5M services will see their monthly fees lowered by 32.4 percent and 41.2 percent to NT$939 and NT$999 a month respectively.
Statistics from the commission show that a majority of Chunghwa’s DSL users subscribe to the 10M/2M service, which accounts for about 1.85 million subscribers.
Chen said the plan meant the company could now compete with firms in Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong in terms of high-speed Internet access.
“Taiwan’s Internet connections are slow and expensive [compared with those territories]. The Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office are greatly concerned about this issue,” Chen said. “From now on, the Internet service in this country begins with 1M.”
Chen said that Chunghwa had also briefed commissioners about its mobile Internet services.
Although the commission has approved the rate plan, it reminded Chunghwa to be prepared to handle the “congestion” if more users switch to its 50M service. The carrier must also assess the time needed to install the facilities and inform a customer exactly when the service would become available.
Chunghwa said subscribers to the 512k/64k service would enjoy the upgraded service starting on Aug. 1.
Chunghwa said it estimated losses of NT$1 billion (US$34.8 million) during the six months after the plan is implemented.
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