Chunghwa Telecom
 |
 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| NYSE: CHT TWSE: 2412 | |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | June 15, 1996 |
| Headquarters | Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan |
Key people | Rick Tsai (Chairman and CEO) |
| Products | Mobile Internet Fixed Network |
| Revenue | USD 7.170 billion |
Number of employees | 28,722 |
| Website | Chunghwa Telecom |
Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 中華電信; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Diànxìn; Wade–Giles: Chung1-hua² Tien4-hsin4) (NYSE: CHT, TWSE: 2412) is the largest telecommunications company in Taiwan and the incumbent mobile, PSTN and broadband carrier there. It has its headquarters in Zhongzheng District, Taipei on the remains of the old Taipei Prison.[1][2]
History
Chunghwa Telecom was founded as a company on June 15, 1996 as part of the Republic of China government's privatization efforts. Prior to this, it operated as a business unit of the Directorate General of Telecommunications (zh:交通部電信總局) for over 100 years. The company’s common shares have been listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under the number “2412” since October 2000, and its ADSs have been listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “CHT” since July 2003. In August 2005, Chunghwa Telecom became a privatized company, as the Taiwan government’s ownership was reduced to less than 50%.
The Directorate General of Telecommunications once exercised a monopoly on the telecommunications market in Taiwan. To make the telecommunications industry more competitive and improve service quality, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications began to promote "telecommunications liberalization" policy from the late 1980s, in which the telecom industry will gradually be opened to private industry operations. The liberalization of telecommunications as well as the management and operation of telecommunications business as mentioned in the plan aimed to achieve "separation between government and enterprises".
On July 1, 1996, the "Chunghwa Telecom Ordinance" was enacted under an amendment of the "Telecommunications Act", which formally established Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd. with a capital of NT$ 96.477 billion yuan, operating first class and second class telecom services, under the "Taiwan Northern Telecom Branch", "Central Taiwan telecommunications branch", "Southern Taiwan telecommunications branch"," long-distance and mobile communications branch", "International Telecommunication Branch", "Data Communications Branch", "Telecommunications Research Institute" and "Telecommunications Training Institute".
In 1997, Chunghwa Telecom was awarded the license to operate a second-generation mobile communications (2G) network (GSM 900MHz and 1800MHz).
In October 2000, Chunghwa Telecom was listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "2412." In July 2003, Chunghwa Telecom was listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "CHT." August 12, 2005, the Government of China Telecom's stake to 50%, and officially became a private company.
In February 2002, Chunghwa Telecom was awarded the license to operate a third-generation mobile communications (3G) network (WCDMA 2100MHz).
In 2007, Chunghwa Telecom acquired Senao International, and Senao becomes the exclusive sales agent of Chunghwa Telecom mobile phones.
On May 1, 2007, Chunghwa Telecom set up a division for enterprise customers, incorporated in the Southern Taiwan telecommunications branch.
On October 30, 2013, Chunghwa Telecom acquired in an auction for NT$ 39.075 billion a spectrum of LTE bands (900MHz B2 / 1800MHz C2 / C5), with a bandwidth limit of 2x35MHz, as well as C5-band (1800MHz).
On May 29, 2014, Chunghwa Telecom held a press conference to announce the start of 4G LTE services on May 30, 2014, and this made Chunghwa Telecom the first telco in Taiwan to provide 4G LTE services.
Services
Chunghwa Telecom is the largest telecommunication service provider in Taiwan and one of the largest in Asia in terms of revenue. In terms of both revenue and customers, Chunghwa is Taiwan’s largest provider of fixed line services, mobile services, broadband access service, and Internet service. The company also provides information and communication technology services to corporate customers.
HiNet has been heavily criticized for being a haven for senders of email spam, which has resulted in many Internet service providers routinely blocking e-mails originating from the service.[3][4][5]
On Jan 1, 2015. ChungHwa Telecom's MOD service removed channel 180 for viewing Eurosport from their monthly NT359 package and moved this to another, less expensive package. This blockage also affected Set-top boxes user who had purchased the package before. The MOD telephone service confirmed that this channel now was only available as an "add-on" the the NT 359/month package for an extra NT$100 per month (thus almost the same price as a complete less expensive package). After visiting CHT's service center on January 1st, the service desk staff came to a different conclusion than their telephone stafff, showing the monthly catalog still had channel 180 for exsiting users. However, after asking them to check their web-site they also confirmed the MOD website (http://mod.cht.com.tw/content/?id=482) did not show channel 180 in the NT359 package anymore. The service center persons were stunned about this discrepancy. Appararantly they were not at all aware of the changes and confirmed this was a mistake but said that using the STB the channel could be added for exisiting users. After checking this and spending almost half an hour on the telephone to go over the menu options of the STB software to find the option to add the channel back in, it was clear the STB did not provide this option at all. After contacting the service center again CHT confirmed they could not help resolving this due to "their technical staff was on holiday until monday January 5th". The service center also informed they had two STB's on which one Eurosport could be viewed but on the other it was blocked and could not explain this either. Neither could the service center advise what the impact would be for existing users after their current contract expired. In other words for five days Eurosport was blocked for exisitng users. CHT does not offer an option on their website by a contact page or email address to contact their support, nor it has a Facebook page or Twitter account to post anything, thus making wikipedia perhaps the only option to make it clear to it's (middle, defunkt) management that CHT's customer service has serious shortcomings for consumers to resolve, even simple, issues. After 10 years of going private but still owned 50% by the Taiwan government, CHT appears still to be having an inferior, monopolistic (it's employees fully object to make their infrastructre public which was inherited from the Taiwan government and thus paid before by tax-payers), slow and aging service organization stucture. When making quite a lot of profits, privatization of CHT seems to come at a cost of Taiwans citizens making their access to international media more expensive than it should be.
Subsidiaries
Senao International, a cellular phone distributor from which Senao Networks, manufacturer of data networking products and wireless telephones under the EnGenius and Senao brands was spun off.[6]
References
- ^ "Chunghwa Telecom 2008 Form 20-F filed with the U.S. SEC". Chunghwa Telecom. Retrieved June 2, 2010.
- ^ "Chunghwa Telecom homepage". cht.com.tw. Retrieved June 2, 2010. 台北市信義路一段21-3號
- ^ "Taiwan email problems due to spam". Green Internet Society. Retrieved July 14, 2008.
- ^ "Hinet Spammer/Hacker IPs". Spacequad AntiSpam Services. Retrieved July 14, 2008.
- ^ The Spamcop reporting service, as of 14 July 2008 listed HiNet as the top target domain of spam reports through its system; see "Domain Summary". Retrieved 6 December 2010.
- ^ "Senao". Retrieved 13 May 2014.