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Japan Considers Taxing of WiFi

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-thats-just-not-very-nice dept.

DoktorTomoe writes "According to an article at Asia Pacific Media Network, Japan plans to introduce a fee for using WLan. The changes necessary for such taxation could be made as early as 2005. "

24 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by Blue-Footed+Boobie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I hope this doesn't give the US Governement any wild ideas...

    --
    DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
    1. Re:Well... by lightknight · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not that we do not have a monopoly on stupid ideas, it's that we export them (so other countries can enjoy the same warm feeling *cough* shaft *cough* of these ideas).

      I guess I wish that the (congressional) debate would move back from "what can we tax?" to "why do we tax?". These days it's less about "Life, Liberty, and Property" than a free-for-all "Everything must go, get your legislation for you and your special interest".

      It's kind of funny what the founding fathers thought of public service: they hated it. The did it, because it needed to be done, but they looked upon the government the same way Bill Gates looks at the DoJ. Now, politicians and beauracrats are treated with great fanfare, as though they are doing something truly great, as opposed to the truth: essentially, they got their position by winning a popularity contest.

      On a side note, does anyone remeber the article a while back, on some obscure law in Florida, whereby they could tax LANs?

      --
      I am John Hurt.
  2. Tax everything by ajuda · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Isn't this a bit moronic? Find things that make economies more efficient and help spread information and tax them? It's not like wireless costs the government anything to allow. Oh yeah, first post.

    1. Re:Tax everything by Tackhead · · Score: 3, Insightful
      > Isn't this a bit moronic? Find things that make economies more efficient and help spread information and tax them? It's not like wireless costs the government anything to allow.

      You forget the attitude of the bureaucrat towards anything that "makes an economy more efficient" or "helps spread information". First, a flush of raw trembling fear. Then apply The Rules:

      If it doesn't move, tax it.
      If it moves, regulate it until it stops moving.
      Then tax it.

      Remember, anything not nailed down belongs to the government. Anything that can be pried loose by a legislative body is not nailed down.

    2. Re:Tax everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Actually I believe it goes like this:

      1. If it moves, tax it.
      2. If it keeps moving, regulate it.
      3. If it stops moving, subsidize it.

    3. Re:Tax everything by pilgrim23 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The classic example of basic research and its applicability is illustrated by the visit of Prime Minister Gladstone to the laboratory
      of Michael Faraday. Gladstone asked Faraday whether he thought this esoteric substance called "electricity" would ever have any practical uses. Faraday's reply was, "ONE DAY, SIR YOU WILL TAX IT."
      From Editorial in Science 26:735 11 Feb 1994 by Daniel E. Koshland
      Jr.

      --
      - Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
    4. Re:Tax everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's not like wireless costs the government anything to allow?

      Yeah, there's not a government agency that regulates public use of the EM spectrum and certifies devices so that using your Microwave doesn't disrupt your wireless network. No, no government involvement in that at all. It's all manufacturers magically agreeing to use the same spectrum, because one thing vendors love is for their competitors' products to be interoperable with their own.

      And furthermore, taxes exist to create revenue. They do not exist (primarily) to punish bad people. Taxes are not punishment, they are how we pay for things.

      You can't have an economy of any scale if all you tax is cigarettes and liquor (even though apparently some states are giving it a shot anyway). You have to tax good things too. But you spread it around so that nobody gets hit too hard, and you tax luxuries (like, say, wi-fi networks) a little higher because the people with them have more money and can afford it.

      No, I don't favor Japan's tax on Wi-Fi. But Jesus H Christ stop being such a knee-jerk libertarian and consider that good beneficial things are taxed all the time and have been for CENTURIES without ill effect. It's the way governments work. We should at least be glad taxes are imposed by elected representatives instead of kings. We tax OURSELVES. People who use a third-person pronoun for a democratic government are usually just whining that they got outvoted.

    5. Re:Tax everything by rock_climbing_guy · · Score: 2, Informative
      You took that from US President Ronald Reagan,


      Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:

      If it moves, tax it.
      If it keeps moving, regulate it.
      And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

      Those are his words.

      --
      Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
    6. Re:Tax everything by Carik · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sorry... broadband is not a necessity. When everyone in the country (I could say world, but let's limit this to whatever country you live in -- that's enough of an issue for the moment) has adequate housing, food, medical care, etc, THEN broadband becomes a necessity. While there are still people on the streets, people who can't get medical care for whatever reason, people who are starving to death -- and don't pretend it doesn't happen; there's not a country in the world with 100% housing/food/med. care supplies -- any kind of internet connection is a luxury.

  3. Taxing Wi-FI by wizatcomputer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How can someone but a tax on using Wi-Fi? That would be like putting a tax on the cordless phones, or remote car locks. Stupid, and a cheep way to get some money for the government!

    --
    What's the point of a sig?
  4. Human Life Tax by mfh · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hey, when's the oxygen tax coming out? Oh, and I think we should also create a tax for walking anywhere, by counting the steps each person takes and sending them a bill at the end of the month. Could be rolled into the breathing tax, by counting the number of breaths each person takes and adding them together for a Human Life Tax. Or we could just tax Wifi...

    --
    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
    1. Re:Human Life Tax by marnargulus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This might be considered if all of a sudden we have huge populations using much of the air available, and making it possible that others can't breathe. From what I see, they are just applying a tax on something that uses the limited spectrum. When all of the space for the spectrum gets filled, who do you think the people will be pissed at for not managing that? The government. They are just trying to help manage it before it gets out of hand. (Especially in a space conservative place like japan. Image in everyone decided to use their equipment at the same time on the same frequency. That would be quite a jam)

    2. Re:Human Life Tax by marcello_dl · · Score: 2, Interesting

      When all of the space for the spectrum gets filled, who do you think the people will be pissed at for not managing that? The government. They are just trying to help manage it before it gets out of hand.

      I don't understand. The tax would have a regulating effect only if wifi access available in public places were taxed, but what about your own apartment using a low power access point? With all the available wifi channels there's no big risk of saturation when everybody keeps the power low enough (risking to be fined if they don't, as it happens with loud noise).

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
  5. Wardriving... by k4_pacific · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does this mean that the Japanese government is going to take up wardriving to look for violators?

    --
    Unknown host pong.
    1. Re:Wardriving... by JPelorat · · Score: 2, Funny

      And when they find a node, they crash their van into it.

      --
      Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
    2. Re:Wardriving... by FireFury03 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Does this mean that the Japanese government is going to take up wardriving to look for violators?

      Unfortunately that's exactly what we get in the UK from the TV Licencing authority - they drive around in detector vans looking for anyone watching TV who doesn't have a licence.

      They also have the assumption that _everyone_ has a TV and target households who don't have a TV with threatening letters and billboard adverts, even if they don't have a TV.

      A few years ago after I moved house I didn't have a TV for a few months - I got a threatening letter from the TV Licencing Authority with "YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW" printed across the _outside_ of the envelope in big letters. If I had any money at the time it would've been interesting to sue them for libel.

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
  6. In Japan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Taxing of WiFi considered... in Japan!

  7. Sex discrimination! by L.+VeGas · · Score: 3, Funny

    A tax on Wifi? What about Hubby?

    --
    Best Windows Freeware
    1. Re:Sex discrimination! by JPelorat · · Score: 4, Funny

      A "Wifey" *is* a Hubby tax.

      --
      Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
  8. tax would be on *hardware*, RTFA! by javaxman · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can't believe all the idiots on /. ...
    They're talking about an extra tax on wifi hardware, not on "usage" per se. The tax would be at time of sale. RTFA, people.

  9. This is unfair as there is no license protection by javaxman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The reason this would be an unfair tax is that it's a tax on transmitters, but not a license for spectrum use.

    The cell-phone frequency example cited in the article puts Joe Japanese Wifi User on par with cell companies. However, cell companies get a slice of spectrum *licensed*, all to themselves. If they find someone transmitting on that frequency other than themselves, they can order them to shut down, and/or take them to court.

    Joe Wifi User gets no such protection. If two guys buy Wifi base stations and set them up next to each other, they both 'payed for the use of the spectrum' and get exactly the same ( no ) protection for the money they've paid. It's just an extra, specific tax on wifi equipment, not any sort of 'spectrum use' fee. A spectrum use fee implies a protected license to use that spectrum. Wifi ain't like that, we're all using the *same* range of frequencies.

  10. Maybe the Japanese government is just grasping at by foidulus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    straws.
    Japan's national debt rivals that of the US, despite the fact that Japan's GDP is only 40% of the US, though a mitigating factor is that Japan's debt is almost all domestically held, whereas the US's is held by a large number of foriegn countries, including ironically Japan. Japan's debt is 140% of their GDP, the highest in the industrialized world. The reason? Taxes are relatively low in Japan to begin with, but Japan insisted on spending it's way out of a recession by so many useless public works projects(which is why I cringe every time the US highway bill is passed), and failed miserably. It was absolutely amazing to me when I was there, I saw construction crews tear apart a perfect road to pave it again. I was dumbfounded(esp. since I come from PA, where they won't fix the roads even when they need it) And with the deepening pension scandal, where politicians didn't pay into Japan's pension system for many years, expect many more wacky taxes to come out of Japan..

  11. Yes! by nicodietrich · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This gives me a good feeling for the night! Maybe interesting to think about!

  12. In awe. by theTerribleRobbo · · Score: 2, Funny


    I tip my hat to you, sir. Ontopic, funny, and making use of a repetitive joke.

    The depth astounds me. And if I don't stop I'm going to sound like and English major.