The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that it would soon announce the guidelines governing arbitration between cable system operators and channel operators, which would give the commission the authority to investigate disputes.
The guidelines have been written due to an increase in disputes between cable system operators and channel operators, the commission said.
The most significant case involves three cable channel agents that were last year fined NT$126 million (US$4 million) each by the Fair Trade Commission for charging fixed content authorization fees for all cable systems, regardless of the number of subscribers each cable system had.
The guidelines state that statements or data presented by the parties in dispute would be subject to investigation, commission spokesperson Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said.
The commission would also scrutinize any indications of unreasonable business practice that restrict competition or violate the Cable Radio and Television Act (有線廣播電視法), Wong said, adding that operators in breach of the act would be punished accordingly.
Should the parties in dispute fail to settle through the arbitration presided over by the commission, they would have to take the matter to court, Wong said.
The commission is mediating six cases involving disagreements between cable system operators and channel operators.
Meanwhile, commission data showed that as of December last year, 5.2 million households nationwide subscribed to a cable service, with the service penetration rate reaching 60 percent.
The commission found that 95.84 percent of those households were digital service subscribers.
The commission said that it would encourage cable service operators to offer fully digitized cable services by the end of the year.
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