NCC passed amendments to “Charge Standard of Utilization Fee of Radio Frequency,” adjusting the charge standards of utilization fees of mobile communications and other radio frequencies. The policy not only facilitates network construction in remote areas, as well as communications coverage at important traffic sections, but also encourages relevant public and private sectors to continue to build a quality smart living environment for people in Taiwan.
Amendments to “Charge Standard of Utilization Fee of Radio Frequency” were passed at today’s 850th Commission Meeting in line with the principle of regularly reviewing relevant fees. The amendments include adding the charge standards for “Commercial, Research and Development Telecommunication Network” and adjustments to the “remote counties coverage factor”, “utilization fee per MHz” and “frequency adjustment factors” with view to reducing the digital divide between urban and rural areas and further establishing the regulatory infrastructure required by the development of 5G.
With the aim of accommodating the convergence of technologies, encouraging the sound development of communications, safeguarding citizens' rights, protecting consumers' interests, improving cultural diversity and reducing the divide between urban and rural areas, as prescribed in the Fundamental Communications Act, NCC has been continuously promoting fixed network voice and data communications access universal services through telecommunications universal services. In that light and with respects to policies and tools of promoting overall broadband society (including fixed and mobile networks), NCC is also committed to facilitating greater collaboration between public and private sectors to boost investment in construction. As for mobile broadband, although the total population coverage of the nation’s mobile broadband operators have already reached 93.2% to 99%, signal coverage in some remote countries and important traffic sites still fall short of targets.
Thus, in order to further increase mobile broadband network coverage and encourage operators to continuously invest in constructing broadband services, NCC has amended its “remote country coverage factor” and introduced the “coverage rate of designated areas”. That is, apart from calculating the population coverage of a remote county based on a four-level administration area framework, NCC has adopted three “designated area coverage rate” levels to calculate the radio frequency utilization fees for remote counties with the population coverage of 85% to 88.5%. It is expected that, by doing so, telecommunications operators will be further encouraged to increase investments in mobile broadband constructions in remote counties and important traffic sections; consequently, as mobile broadband coverage increases, investments in remote counties will also increase. In other words, through the collaboration between public and private sectors, the network coverage rate in remote countries can be optimized, encouraging the government and private sector to develop all types of application services, thereby creating a smart living environment.
NCC also indicated that, in response to the millimeter wave high frequency band and big bandwidth for 5G applications in the future and considering different physical characteristics of various frequency bands, spectrum values should be segmented, the reason behind the amendment to the “frequency adjustment factors” of telecommunications services. Currently, spectrum is divided into four sections: below 1GHz; 1GHz to 3GHz; 3GHz to 6GHz; and above 6GHz, where weighting factors of 1, 0.75, 0.18 and 0.004 are added thereto respectively to show the relative values of spectrum of different bandwidth. Furthermore, NCC also adjusted the “utilization fee per MHz” from TWD10.675 million to TWD9.08 million according to the frequency value data reflected in the licensing of mobile broadband by other advanced nations in recent years, as well as the development of the nation’s telecommunications market. Together with the said modification on the frequency adjustment factors, this amendment can respond to the frequency characteristics of 5G and shows the market value thereof.
NCC also explained that, in regard to “Commercial, Research and Development Telecommunication Network”, amendments to “Administrative Regulations on The Establishment And Operation of Telecommunications Network for the Academic and Educational purpose or Dedicated Experiment, Research and Development purpose”, where the “Proof of Business (PoB)” experimental mechanism was added therein, have already been promulgated. In line with the principle of facilitating effective use of radio frequency resources and the user-pay cost concept, the “Commercial, Research and Development Telecommunication Network” was added therein based on relevant charge standards of other advanced countries. The amendment was made not only to ensure reasonable utilization fees of radio frequency, but also to encourage domestic operators to develop relevant technology and commercial and innovative applications with an expectation that the development of the nation’s digital economy can be facilitated, leading to further innovation and development of 5G, IoT and vertical market relevant applications.
NCC further emphasized that the utilization fee of radio frequency is one of the key frequency management tools. This amendment aims not only to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural areas, but also modify the regulatory infrastructure to become suitable for the future development of 5G. By mutually applying the policies of “promoting broadband coverage rate” and “universal service fund mechanism”, NCC expects that the government’s objectives of developing “a digital country, a smart island” can be realized.
