Japanese Bureaucrats want to tax the air we breath

by **Taro Toporific** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 2:34 pm

Ah, those jokesters at the Ministry of Telecommunications want to kill Wifi, Bluetooth, wireless routers, and most of all, YahooBB cordless phones.
Japan mulls spectrum user fees on info appliances
TOKYO, July 19 (Xinhuanet) --Japanese government is considering charging users of home information appliances and high-bandwidth wireless local area networks for spectrum user fees.
The Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications said Monday it mulls a revision bill of the Radio Law aimed to introduce the new charges, the ministry said.
The users of home information appliances and wireless LANs are currently exempted from paying spectrum user fees.

by **amdg** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 3:15 pm

currently exempted from paying spectrum user fees

Is this politico-speak for saying that they haven't invented this particular tax yet, but are considering it? :evil:

Or are some consumers already paying 'spectrum user fees' ??

The only spectrum I'd consider paying taxes for is this...

by **American Oyaji** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 12:20 am

That WOULD kill wireless internet in Japan.

I smell the stinky fingers of NTT all over this one.

by **Unspoken** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 3:51 am

Wow, that is insanely stupid. Anything that makes the FCC look like a paragon of virtue is just plain wrong.

by **Caustic Saint** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 8:41 am

Are they going to apply this "fee" to cordless phones too? Doesn't most WiFi stuff run at 2.4GHz - the same frequency used by many cordless phones these days?

I mean, it's the usage of the frequency they want to tax, right? They're not just doing this to invent some new revenue stream, are they?

by **Taro Toporific** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:03 am

Caustic Saint wrote:I mean, it's the usage of the frequency they want to tax, right? They're not just doing this to invent some new revenue stream, are they?

Nah, the bastards at the former Posts-and-Telcom Ministry* are far more evil . They wanna kill WiFi cellphones like YahooBB is selling. That is, you buy a Yahoo broadband wireless base-station and you can use your cordless phone to call anyone on YahooBB for FREE. In my neighborhood or downtown Tokyo, YahooBB WiFi could become so popular that NTT and DoCoMo would start losing even more more revenue.

*(Hell they so bad they had to change their name to The Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications.)

by **Big Booger** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:13 am

by **Taro Toporific** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 12:53 pm

&quot wrote:
bikkle wrote:Japanese government plans wireless LAN fee

Japanese Consumers Might Get Wi-Fi Tax
July 21, 2004
/ Wi-Fiplanet.com
... Various fees are in place now for everything from cellular phone use to licensed broadcasting.
The tariff would be collected at the time of a Wi-Fi product's purchase.
While the bill specifically targets use of wireless on PC networks, the Web site GameSpot says that even products like game consoles, such as the Sony PSP that comes with integrated wireless, would be subject to the tax.

by **Caustic Saint** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 1:07 pm

How long would it realistically take them to implement this? Both the Nintendo DS and the PSP are due out in Japan before the end of the year.

(Guess I'd better pick up that Airport Express now, huh?

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Japanese Bureaucrats want to tax the air we breath

Japanese Bureaucrats want to tax the air we breath

It's sort of sales tax.

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