The Taiwanese multi-service operator Chunghwa Telecom has reported that it is looking to introduce commercial LTE-based services, this coming July, ahead of its previously set fourth-quarter date, Telegeography has said, citing the Taipei Times.

The operator originally set out to have 300,000 4G subscribers by the end of the year and this decision to move the launch forward is expected to boost that number. Chunghwa\'s chairman and CEO Rick Tsai, keen to beat the initial target, was quoted as saying: "It\'s part of our financial forecast, which we always try to surpass."

This past December, Chunghwa came up with plans to cover 60 percent of Taiwan\'s people in six metropolitan areas, within the first year of 4G service, with that figure rising to 90 percent in all counties by the second year, and 90 percent in all rural areas by the third. To reach this goal, it said it will deploy 3,000 BTS for the initial phase, and expects to have more than 10,000 BTS nationwide once the LTE network rollout is complete.

Telegeography, citing Focus Taiwan, further reports that Chunghwa has confirmed it is talking about the possibility of sharing resources with the Taiwan Star Cellular Corp, which emerged from the state\'s recent 4G auction with a 10MHz block of spectrum in the 900MHz band.

"We\'re indeed negotiating on lease lines, infrastructure sharing and base station sharing," Chunghwa\'s president, Shih Mu-piao, was cited as saying.