EXPENSIVE  5G:Taiwan Mobile Co president James Cheng urged the regulator to amend the regulations so that telecoms could join forces and build shared networks

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 15, 2018
By: Lisa Wang  /  Staff reporter

The nation’s major telecoms yesterday called on the regulator to reduce the spectrum usage fee for 5G wireless networks and to extend the license duration to 20 years, to help alleviate the financial burden from costly 5G network deployment.

The call came as local telecoms are hesitant to spend a lot of money on 5G networks, because most of them are still making losses on 4G networks after a fevered bidding war in a 2013 auction inflated license fees to NT$118.65 billion (US$3.84 billion).

Fierce competition has since drained their profits.

“The investment on a 5G network is even more costly, meaning a longer time to turn a profit on the network,” Far EasTone Telecommunications Co Ltd (遠傳電信) president Yvonne Li (李彬) told a 5G forum in Taipei yesterday arranged by the Taiwan Communications Society.    [FULL  STORY]