Hoveringsys Corp has stopped offering its Free AD WiFi service within the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system due to price competition from the nation’s major telecoms, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The free Wi-Fi service was launched in July 2017 through a partnership between the Taipei-based company and Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC).
Users needed to tap on an advertisement page to access the service and did not need to set up an account.
Photo: Huang Chien-hao, Taipei Times
Each user could access the service for free for 30 minutes. They could re-access the network should they be disconnected, and there were no limits on the number of times they could access the service.
The company sustained its operations through advertising revenue.
Last year, the company and TRTC announced that the service could be accessed on carriages and at MRT stations.
The service’s download and upload speeds were also raised to 6 and 2 megabits per second respectively.
However, the company on Monday last week informed TRTC that it would stop offering the service, starting at 3pm the next day.
“Last year, all major telecoms offered unlimited data services for NT$499 per month or cheaper, which have greatly reduced the number of times that MRT users accessed the Free AD WiFi service,” company president Lin Chuan-chi (林全馳) said in a statement.
“We communicated with TRTC and the Taipei City Government about this problem in the past six months and in the meantime tried to provide the service, but the discussions have failed to lead to any agreement. As such, the free Wi-Fi service business worsened each day, rendering us unable to continue offering free Wi-Fi to MRT passengers,” he added.
About 70,000 passengers, or about 3.3 percent of average daily MRT passengers, accessed the service daily, TRTC statistics showed.
NCC acting spokesperson Hsiao Chi-hung (蕭祈宏) said that Hoveringsys is a Tier-II telecom operator, which developed the service by leasing the network from major telecoms.
“It is a matter of free-market mechanism if [Hoveringsys] cannot survive the low-price competition for Internet services. The company has the right to decide whether the service should continue,” he said.
Due to Hoveringsys canceling the service, the city government activated 158 new hotspots to offer the TPE-Free Wi-Fi service, although users need to set up an account with their mobile phone numbers and choose a password to access the service.
They cannot use the service on carriages and would be logged out if they remain inactive for 15 minutes.
However, an article published on Kocpc.com.tw, an online technology forum, said that the nation did not see an explosive growth in 4G service usage after telecoms offered unlimited data plans for NT$499 per month in May last year.
Service usage volume for 4G has been stable, it said, citing NCC statistics, adding that any sudden surge in usage were likely to be caused by special events like the FIFA World Cup.
As for Hoveringsys’ reasons for canceling its Free AD WiFi service, the article said that 4G subscribers, whether they subscribe to unlimited or limited data services, would be given a certain amount of free mobile Internet data transmission.
This has lowered the need to access the free service, it said.
Foreign visitors to the nation can access mobile Internet using locally purchased prepaid 4G cards, Wi-Fi hotspots scattered nationwide and international roaming services they have subscribed to in their own countries.
“The Free AD WiFi service disconnected easily as the trains moved and transmission speed was mediocre at best. This made it difficult for commuters to access streaming content when on board and they were not likely to completely depend on the service,” the article said.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
RSS