The German government look set to impose a monthly tax on computers, phones and other mobile devices that can receive a television and radio signal. Whether the Irish government decide to follow suit is another situation altogether as we already pay over €150 for the joy of receiving two national TV stations, the remainder being broadcast license free (such as TV3) – and that fee is supposed to be per TV unit.

According to MobileBurn.com

Now that personal computers and mobile phones are gaining the same media abilities as their conventional house mates, the German states wish to impose the same 5.52EUR (US$6.94) monthly fee on them. That means potentially that a German citizen with a phone capable of viewing streaming video or radio would have to pay the monthly fee on top of any carrier based fees. The worst part is that the state fee would have to be paid even if they did not use their phone for such media services.

The fee would impact millions of German mobile users but if it was to be launched in Ireland it would have a knockon effect on almost everyone in the country, mobile penetration in Ireland already at 100% with over 4,000,000 handsets in the country