Telecom giant says temporary glitches possible because two generations of networks share cell towers

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/17
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — With customer complaints mounting over a worsened 4G mobile connection after the launch of Taiwan's 5G network in early July, one telecom giant admits its 4G services have had an "unwanted" slower data connection since February.

Rumors have been circulating that local telecom service providers have slowed down their 4G mobile data to push customers to switch to 5G plans. Chunghwa Telecom's (中華電信) 4G subscribers are said to have complained the most.

Chunghwa Telecom responded by dismissing the rumors, saying the company would never promote 5G at the expense of the 4G plans. It explained that traffic had skyrocketed since early February during the coronavirus outbreak, leading to a congested 4G network given the large base of subscribers.

However, the company did not rule out a temporary glitch lasting around 10 minutes when the 5G network was launched, saying the network settings had been reset since the two different network generations share nearly all the country's cell towers.    [FULL  STORY]