The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday rejected Tatung Infocomm’s license renewal application and said it has to return the spectrum it owns to the commission after its license expires at the end of the year.
NCC spokesperson Yu Hsiao-cheng (虞孝成) said the commission turned down Tatung Infocomm’s application because it failed to build 1,837 WiMAX base stations as stated in the business plan it submitted to the commission.
As of May 31 this year, the company had built only 681 base stations, Yu said.
The commission also conducted random inspections of the base stations and found that 47 were not functioning, he said.
Article 46 of the Regulations for Administration of Wireless Broadband Access Business (無線寬頻接取業務管理規則) lists seven conditions for denying a license application, the most important of which is failure to complete the system construction plan or execute the responsibilities stated in the business plan without justifiable reasons, Yu added.
“The company argued that it failed to deliver on its promises to construct the base stations because there were no international manufacturers producing base stations for WiMAX services anymore,” Yu said. “However, we found an Israeli manufacturer that is still producing WiMAX base stations, so there is no justifiable reason for the company not to fulfill the terms of its business plan.”
Tatung Infocomm launched its WiMAX service in 2009. It has 3,557 service subscribers.
Cheng Ming-tsung (鄭明宗), head of the commission’s mobile communications section, said that Tatung Infocomm could continue providing the service until its license expires on Dec. 3.
Cheng added that the company is obligated to give its subscribers at least one month’s notice before terminating the service.
The company is also obligated to return the spectrum which it acquired through an auction to the commission after its license expires, he said.
Tatung Infocomm is the nation’s first WiMAX operator to apply for a license renewal.
Telecommunication industry insiders said that the commission’s ruling serves as a warning to other WiMAX operators, as many have not completed the installations stated in their business plans.
WiMAX operators are currently using spectrums in the 2.6 gigahertz (GHz) frequency.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has announced that the government would place the 2.6GHz band up for auction to long-term evolution (LTE) technology, also known as 4G, telecom service providers next year.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
RSS