Far EasTone moves to compete for mobile TV license

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on September 15, 2006. It reports that Far EasTone Telecom Co., Ltd. recently joined three consortiums to compete for a government bid to test-broadcast Taiwan's first mobile TV programming.

According to Far EasTone, Taiwan's telecom-service market has grown as a whole in recent years, but cellular-service providers have seen their revenues remain flat, mostly because of the government's tight control of pre-paid card issuances, increased intranet calls and increased international calls via the Internet.

Although Far EasTone still stayed profitable in the first half of 2006, its projected revenue for the third quarter will likely recess from the same period of 2005.

In particular, the National Communications Commission recently tightened control of pre-paid card sales. This has led to a sharp slump of the number of local cellular subscribers using the cards, from 2 million to 1.32 million. The new policy also led to Far EasTone's loss of NT$2.5 billion (US$78 million) in the card business.

According to Far EasTone, most of the contenders of the aforementioned mobile TV test run are broadcasting operators. In order to increase its winning chance, the company has teamed up with three consortiums to joint the competition for the contract.

According to this article, Far EasTone is mostly interested in the DVB-H (digital video broadcasting home) mobile-TV technology, which is mostly friendly to mobile photos.

Meanwhile, Far EasTone as a telecom-service provider is also prepared to bid for Taiwan's first licenses to run WiMAX wireless telecom services. The National Communications Commission plans to issue 9 licenses that cover three service regions throughout Taiwan. Far EasTone will compete for at least one license in each of the three regions in order to provide islandwide services.

Finally, Far EasTone plans to introduce 3.5-generation cellular service by the end of September 2006. The company will base the service on HSPDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) technology, which boasts an optimized beaming speed of 3.6 megabits per second.