Starting on Jan. 1 next year, subscribers of Chunghwa Telecom’s cellphone services are to pay less for telephone calls to landline numbers, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday after approving the company’s new connection rate for fixed network services.
Chunghwa Telecom is the nation’s dominant fixed network service provider and its rate changes need the commission’s approval.
Connection fees for cellphone users calling landlines are to drop 9.65 percent during high-usage hours, from NT$0.4851 per minute to NT$0.4383 per minute, and by 15 percent during low-usage hours, to NT$0.2148 per minute, for Chunghwa subscribers and those of other telecoms as well, the commission said.
Connection fees for calls between landlines are to remain unchanged, despite declining usage, because the company has to pay for the cost of installing and maintaining the fixed network service, the commission said.
Fees for international telephone calls would also remain unchanged, it said.
The new rates are to apply until Dec. 31, 2022, the commission said, adding that Chunghwa Telecom’s previous rate scheme, approved in 2015, reduced connection fees by 7 percent.
As for calls made from landlines to cellphones, the commission approved Chunghwa Telecom’s proposal made in November last year to reduce the connection fee from NT$1.15 per minute to NT$0.811 per minute as of this year.
The fee is to drop to NT$0.68 per minute next year and to NT$0.571 per minute in 2020, it added.
However, declining intermediary costs, such as connection fees, do not necessarily lead to a decline in the terminal value of the telecom services, because some companies have begun charging subscribers NT$1 per minute for calls from cellphones to landlines, the commission said.
Subscribers to Asia-Pacific Telecom’s unlimited data plans are given 200 to 400 cost-free minutes for calls to landlines, it said.
The decline in connection fees is expected to spark market competition by encouraging companies to offer more cost-free minutes to attract subscribers, the commission added.
However, the fixed network service market is shrinking dramatically due to the rapidly growing mobile communications and voice-over-Internet protocol services, it said.
Since 2015, Chunghwa Telecom’s voice communication over landlines has fallen by 5.6 billion minutes, with the compound annual growth rate dropping 7 percent, the commission said.
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