Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom plans to introduce four-carrier aggregation (CA) by the end of the month to take advantage of its refarmed 1,800-MHz spectrum following the nation’s 2G switch-off. The operator also plans to increase its number of 4G base stations by 40% this year, mostly in urban areas.
With the upgrade to four-carrier aggregation, Chunghwa Telecom expects to boost peak speeds to up to 500Mbps, up from 300Mbps over three-carrier aggregation.
The upgrade will first commence in urban and commercial areas of Greater Taipei as well as some northern Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp stations. By the end of the year, the upgrade is to be extended to all metropolitan areas as well as 12 train stations.
In remote areas, Chunghwa plans to deploy UMTS 900 base stations to allow subscribers to continue making calls over 4G after the 2G switch-off.
The operator has a capex budget for the year of NT$30.3 billion ($993.7 million), to be spent primarily on 4G and fiber deployments.
Chunghwa Telecom had 7.12 million 4G users by the end of March, around two thirds of its total subscriber base. The company also had the largest number of 2G hold-outs at the time of the 2G switch-off at the start of the month – around 60,000.