Chunghwa Telecom is the largest telecommunication

Telecommunication

Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

s company in Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

. It has its headquarters in Zhongzheng District, Taipei

Taipei

Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...

 on the remains of the old Taipei Prison

Remains of Taipei prison walls

The remains of Taipei prison walls are located in Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan at the end of Aiguo Road and Jinshan South Road adjacent to the current Taipei operations center for Chunghwa Telecom. Approximately 100 meters of wall exist on both sides of the Chunghwa Telecom property...

.

History

Chunghwa Telecom was officially established on July 1, 1996 as part of the Republic of China government's privatization efforts. Prior to this, it operated as a business unit of the Directorate General of Telecommunications for over 100 years. The company’s common shares have been listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange

Taiwan Stock Exchange

The Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation is a financial institution, located in Taipei 101, in Taipei, Taiwan. The TSEC was established in 1961 and began operating as a stock exchange on 9 February 1962...

 under the number “2412” since October 2000, and its ADSs have been listed on the New York Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...

 under the symbol “CHT” since July 2003. In August 2005, Chunghwa Telecom became a privatized company, as the Taiwan government’s ownership was reduced to less than 50%.

HiNet has been heavily criticized for being a haven for senders of E-mail spam

E-mail spam

Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...

, which has resulted in many Internet service providers routinely blocking e-mails originating from the service.

Services

Chunghwa Telecom is the largest telecommunication service provider in Taiwan and one of the largest in Asia in terms of revenue. In terms of both revenue and customers, Chunghwa is Taiwan’s largest provider of fixed line services, mobile services, broadband access service, and Internet service. The company also provides information and communication technology services to corporate customers.

External links

• Chunghwa Telecom - Official site
• HiNet - Chunghwa Telecom's Internet service provider
• CHT Global - Chunghwa Telecom's US Subsidiary