Transmitter tax
The transmission system levy (coll. Mobile phone mast tax ) was a planned tax of the state of Lower Austria , with which every mobile radio transmitter should be taxed. It should have applied in the entire state from 2006 , but it was withdrawn after an agreement with the mobile network operators .
It was decided in spring 2005 jointly by the ÖVP under Erwin Pröll and the SPÖ of Lower Austria. According to this law, an amount between EUR 7,000 and EUR 21,000 should be due annually for each transmitter. Exceptions were transmission systems that are located on public property or have less than 4 watts of transmission power, although it was not defined in more detail what was meant by this transmission power listed in the legal text.
The tax should reduce the number of transmission towers. At the time, each mobile network operator preferred to set up its own locations, which neither the state government nor the individual municipalities have the right to object. The tax was intended to exert economic pressure on network operators to operate a larger number of transmission systems together (site sharing). The network operators opposed this for technical reasons: Since the radio networks had been set up and grown independently of one another in the years before, and the transmitters thus had to cover different target areas, the transmitter locations are not suitable for sharing at every location. Where it makes sense in terms of radio technology, common locations have been established for a long time.
The Vice Chancellor Hubert Gorbach initially announced that the BZÖ would raise an objection at the federal level. After the federal government was not of a unanimous opinion, the objection period expired without a veto being lodged. The federal states of Salzburg , Burgenland and Vorarlberg are now considering levying a tax in this form. The EU had already made reservations.
Critics were of the opinion that this tax would not change the situation. It was expected that only the tariffs would be raised and that this would create a competitive disadvantage for Lower Austria. In addition, the tax primarily does not actually serve to regulate, but to raise money for the state budget. (According to preliminary calculations, it would have poured around 45 million euros into the state treasury.) Furthermore, the mobile network operators referred to the fact that, after the liberalization of telecommunications services, the technical difference between individual network operators is mainly due to the different structure of the networks and one The opening of all transmitter locations to new operators - including the state of Lower Austria - will freeze investments and subsequently lose competition.
Since, on the other hand, many people themselves are critical of the numerous antennas - such an attitude is based in numerous politically motivated press reports from 1995 to 2005 and in latent fears of new technologies, which are significantly reinforced by media coverage and also by scientific articles to the contrary cannot be weakened - part of the population supported this measure. However, Mobilkom Austria announced that call charges in Lower Austria could increase by up to 15 percent. Technically, this would have been implemented by means of a kind of domestic roaming in Lower Austria. This in turn called the public on the other side to the scene: A citizens' initiative of the mobile phone customers now even collected signatures against the transmitter tax.
The Lower Austrian provincial government got a tailwind in August 2005 after the German technician Johannes Kamp, who also advises municipalities in Germany on the location of transmitter masts, said that the number of masts in Lower Austria could be halved. To do this, the masts would have to be increased to improve the range accordingly. In return, the radiation intensity for the population could be reduced, as the antennas would be higher above the ground and thus further away from the people. Such a simple explanation, however, was in substantial contradiction to the scientific principles that make the functioning of cell phones possible.
A ruling from the European Court of Justice was eagerly awaited on a similar levy previously levied by two Belgian municipalities. In mid-September 2005, the Court of Justice ruled that the tax did not contradict the EU principle of freedom to provide services. The question of a possible distortion of competition was referred back to the Belgian courts. The state of Lower Austria interpreted this judgment as confirmation that its submission would also stand up to an EU court. EU Commissioner Viviane Reding , who also wanted to have the law checked, did not see it that way. Because the ruling of the European Court of Justice only clarified the issue of freedom to provide services, but not of other contradictions to the European legal situation, the network operators themselves considered clarifying this before the European Court of Justice.
Despite legal proceedings brought in by various operators and cross shots from the various political camps, especially the Greens and FPÖ members within Lower Austria and Vice Chancellor Gorbach, negotiations continued between the operators and the Lower Austrian provincial government.
At the end of October, Governor Erwin Pröll reached an agreement with the mobile phone operators according to which the levy will not take effect. It was contractually stipulated that the operators of the existing masts would reduce the currently individually operated masts from two thirds to one third, i.e. either dismantle them or use them jointly, and 80% would be used jointly for the upcoming mobile radio transmission systems. Efficiency gains would benefit customers. (Of course, this assumed inefficient network planning by the mobile network operators. However, the Republic of Austria obliged them to cover those areas for which the construction of a mobile radio transmission system was not economical due to the allocation guidelines for mobile radio frequencies Province of Lower Austria to set up its own telecommunications infrastructure using wireless LANs.) All complaints were also withdrawn.
In mid-December the law was withdrawn in the Lower Austrian state parliament on the basis of a motion by the ÖVP and the SPÖ. The Greens did not agree to the cell phone mast levy because a suspected health risk to the population from mobile communications was not anchored in the text of the law, the FPÖ did not agree to this law because it feared an increase in telephony costs.
The agreement that the state reached with the mobile network operators was subsequently concluded in January 2006 on the same basis between the state of Burgenland and the transmission tower operators .
On June 21, 2006, a Mobilkom Austria transmission system was dismantled in Oed-Oehling and a ONE transmission system in Lanzenkirchen . Thus, the mobile radio pact was actually implemented for the first time. The mast from Lanzenkirchen has since been exhibited in the Lower Austrian State Museum.
Situation in 2011
A total of 43 masts have been dismantled since 2005. There are 355 masts that are only used by one network operator. In Lower Austria around 64% of the masts are used by more than one operator, while in Austria as a whole it is only 48%.
Web links
- Citizens' initiative of mobile phone customers
- Technical economic study from 2005 (PDF file; 1.92 MB)
Footnotes
- ^ The mobile radio pact and its consequences . In: ORF . December 6, 2011