Asia Pacific Telecom (renamed from Asia Pacific Broadband Telecom), the only CDMA2000 mobile telecom carrier in Taiwan, will launch CDMA2000 1xEV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) mobile broadband Internet-access service on October 1, 2012, according to company CEO Vincent Chih.
The launch of CDMA2000 1xEV-DO service is about one year behind the original schedule, Chih indicated. Due to the delay, Asia Pacific Telecom has seen the number of it subscribers decrease from 3.1 million at the end of February 2012 to 3.05 million currently, Chih said. After the launch, the company aims to increase the proportion of total revenues for data communication service to 40% in 2013 and the number of all subscribers to four million in 2014, Chih said.
Asia Pacific Telecom has the advantage of lower cost for CDMA2000 1xEV-DO infrastructure equipment as compared with fellow 3G operators, Chih claimed. To reach 80% coverage of target population, for example, WCDMA operators need to set up 6,000-8,000 base stations while Asia Pacific Telecom has to set up 2,500 ones only, Chih said.
The company plans to procure 1.1 million handsets in 2012, with 20-30% of them to be smartphones, Chih indicated. It will cooperate with China Telecom, the only CDMA2000 mobile telecom carrier in China, for joint procurement to minimize procurement cost, Chih said.