TAIPEI Taiwan's Eastern Broadband Telecom Company said Sunday it had received the first operating licence for a private-run company to compete in the island's fixed-line telecom business. The company also said it has completed the installation of communications equipment for 150,000 subscribers. "Eastern Broadband is scheduled to kick start its operation next month," Wang Ling-Tai, vice chairman of the company, told AFP, some eight months after the company began its hardware construction. "Initially our service is available for business clients," Wang said. He said Eastern Broadband was scheduled to complete its round-the-island fiber optic network in cooperation with the state-run Taiwan Rail Administration before the year's end. The upgrade would add extra capacity to the network to allow for up to 1.8 million subscribers. With the fresh challenge from the private sector, state-run Chunghwa Telecom was anticipated to cut rates. "The domestic market has for a long time been a monopolized market... now with our entry, Chunghwa telecom is expected to axe rates," Wang forecast. Capitalized at 65.6 billion Taiwan dollars ($2.01 billion), Eastern Broadband was one of three private companies licensed last year to run a fixed-line telecom business. The other two -- Taiwan Fixed Network Telecom and New Century Infocommon Company -- may obtain their operating licenses in February and March, according to press reports. In January 1996, Taiwan's Parliament passed legislation to deregulate the state-run telecommunications sector within five years and open it up to foreign investments as part of the island's efforts to meet WTO (World Trade Organization) requirements.