2015 Basic Stations Retail Rates for Tainan City’s Cable Television Providers: Rules and Regulations
On November 19, 2014, the National Communications Commission (NCC) in their 618th Committee Resolution passed the following rules and regulations for 2015 cable television retail rates. Tainan City’s four cable television providers must abide by these retail rates: basic stations retail rates for Twin Stars and Sun Crown are 495NT; HYA Cable TV is 540NT; and the different plans for NT CATV are 520NT, 540NT, and 560NT.
Maximum costs that cable television providers can charge for installing systems are as follows: cost for installing a motherboard is 1,500NT. Costs for installing an extension are as follows: if extension is installed at the same time as motherboard, the extension amount is 500NT. If extension is installed after the motherboard is installed then the extension cost is 800NT. There is no deposit required for the digital adapters (or set-top boxes) of a household’s first two systems, but a deposit is required once a household installs a digital adapter for a third (as well as additional) systems. The deposit for installation is 1000NT.
Cable television retail rates are based on Article 51 of Cable Radio and Cable Television Law, and details about enforcing rules and regulations can be found in Article 33. The NCC states that it determines retail rates by the quality of cable television services that is offered by cable television providers; how developed the area is that the provider’s operations are located in; economic differences between urban and rural areas; population density, income averages, and employment rates of area; the amount of stations a provider offers as well as the quality of these stations; and the percentage of the area that has installed digital systems. All these above factors are considered together whenever retail rates are determined.
The NCC pointed out that in 2014 cable television providers following the rules and regulations for cable television retail rates did very well in increasing the percentages of systems with digital services. Tainan City’s four cable television system providers, excluding HYA Cable TV, which stopped broadcasting analog signals after it reached 100% digitalization in the second quarter of 2014, in the third quarter of 2014 Twin Stars had 84.92% digitalization, Sun Crown had 82.57% digitalization, and NT CATV had 97.1% digitalization.
Because Tainan City’s HYA Cable TV is now 100% digital, has continued to provide customers with a large variety of services, and is currently improving the speed of its broadband services, the NCC did not change the company’s 2015 basic stations retail rate of 540NT.
Twin Stars and Sun Crown have been very successful in their efforts in promoting digital cable, and these companies have also improved household broadcasting quality, the quality of cable lines and signal strength, and customer service efficiency in order to improve customer satisfaction rates. Therefore, the NCC has determined retail rates be increased by 15NT to a total of 495NT.
In addition to producing great results for digitalization, NT CATV has effectively taken care of various viewing and technology-related issues during their effort to digitalize. The company also developed the chang-qing remote control for elder users, and it created different payment plans, which has increased the amount of viewing options customers can choose from. Every payment plan has added high definition stations, and the company has improved the quality of services offered to customers. The NCC determined the following retail rates for these different payment plans:
A1 Plan: Analog signal cable services has added two Taiwanese-produced stations and there are currently 106 basic stations. Retail rate is set at 520NT.
A2 Plan: Digital signal cable services has added nine high definition stations, which includes three Taiwanese-produced stations, four HBO stations, one FX movie channel (Fox), and one Sport Cast channel. There are currently 124 basic stations. Retail rate is set at 520NT.
A2 Plan with either B1 or B2: In addition to what is offered with A2 Plan, every household can add two high definition movie stations and two high definition sports stations. There are currently 126 basic stations. Retail rate is set at 540NT.
A2 Plan with both B1 and B2: In addition to what is offered with A2 Plan, every household can add two high definition movie stations and two high definition sports stations. There are currently 128 basic stations. Retail rate is set at 560NT.