Taiwanese regulator NCC has come under fire for its policy of allowing cross-strait cables linking Taiwan and mainland China.
Members of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party questioned the NCC at a committee meeting over its proposal to let Taiwanese and Chinese operators jointly build subsea cables, stating it could threaten national security, the Taipei Times said.
Joint cable projects would give mainland carriers unfettered access to potentially confidential information, the DPP said.
But the NCC and the Mainland Affairs Council defended the amended regulations, approved in November.
They said under the current regime, traffic must be routed through international subsea cables or satellites, often via third-party locations, driving costs up for consumers.
The international cables that link to both China and Taiwan are the APCN, the Trans-Pacific Cable
Network, the China-US Cable Network, and the SEA-ME-WE 3.
The DPP asked for the debate to be postponed until Taiwanese security officials can brief the commission.
The discussion then turned a long-mooted proposal to eliminate long-distance rates within Taiwan.
The committee passed two motions designed to enable uniform calling rates for Taiwan proper and its outlying islands, treating the whole of Taiwan as a single area.
The NCC plans to implement uniform phone rates in a piecemeal fashion, but the ruling KMT party is pushing to align call rates in the outlying islands Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu with Taiwan proper within a year.
But Taiwan's largest operator, Chunghwa Telecom, told the Times it believes the entire process could take between four to five years. The company complained it stands to lose NT$3.58 billion ($122.4 billion) from the scheme.