The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that it is investigating whether Asia-Pacific Telecom has violated regulations regarding network roaming.
The investigation was launched after the commission received complaints from three other 4G telecoms — Chunghwa Telecom, Far Eastone Telecommunications and Taiwan Star.
The operators said that Asia-Pacific Telecom had signed an agreement with Taiwan Mobile, another 4G service operator, that allows the former to continue servicing its customers via the network of the latter in out-of-service areas.
They said that such a roaming deal is not a permissible practice, according to government regulations.
Liang Wen-hsing (梁溫馨), acting deputy director at the commission’s telecommunications administration department, said it is still clarifying some of the details of the case to determine which regulations apply.
He added that the commission must also consider if the actual practice of these two companies meets the definition for roaming and if Asia-Pacific Telecom has fulfilled its commitments as stated in its operational plan.
However, a source from one of the complainant 4G telecoms told the Taipei Times that they conducted tests using Asia-Pacific Telecom SIM cards and found that users can still connect to the company’s network on their mobile phones under the automatic network selection setting.
Should users turn off the automatic setting and manually choose the network, they cannot access the Asia-Pacific Telecom network when it shows up on the list.
“This shows that the Asia-Pacific Telecom data transmission has been taking place in the networks built by Taiwan Mobile, not the ones they built themselves,” the source said, adding that they also found that the network code on the SIM card belongs to Taiwan Mobile.
Taiwan Star Telecom Corp president Cliff Lai (賴弦五) last week criticized the Asia-Pacific Telecom/Taiwan Mobile alliance, saying that it is a direct challenge to the NCC.
He added that the telecommunication industry is highly regulated and that forging a roaming alliance should be prohibited if it is not listed as a permissible practice.
He also questioned if Asia-Pacific Telecom would continue building service base stations following an investment from Hon Hai/Foxconn Technology Group.
“Both Chunghwa Telecom and Asia-Pacific Telecom have shares owned by the government. The former has been working to build as many base stations as possible, whereas the latter keeps forming roaming partnerships with others — is that what the government wants?” Lai asked. “And if you were a customer of Taiwan Mobile, would you still be glad to know that customers of Asia-Pacific Telecom can share the use of the same network you are using — with a way lower monthly service rate?”
Asia-Pacific Telecom has formed several partnership deals with Taiwan Mobile since Hon Hai became the company’s largest shareholder.
Taiwan Mobile, on the other hand, holds a 14.9 percent stake in Hon Hai Group subsidiary Ambit Corp, an investment of NT$2.98 billion.
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