Hi,

As I can remember Sam hasn't got a car :)

I own a car and didn't plugged the antenna so I m unable to receive any FM Radio and so on. My building hasn't any antenna connection to cable or whatever.

But I'm lucky, I towed the guys from Billag a long time ago, and I guess i still have the mail where they told me I wasn't in the need to pay. But that was in fact before that * stupid addition * (my 2 cents ;) ) regarding the broadband access.

Maybe telling billag you have a pc, but have no microsoft or userfriendly software and any media viewer, as you are using your internet connection only for professional matters (as monitoring etc) could work.

The fact is, " Nul n'est sensé ignorer la loi ", but " c'est tellement marrant de jouer avec la loi quand on y arrive " :) (yeah I'm getting low cost, 1,5 cents for that one only)

Gimme a ring, or meet me for a beer if you have anymore question about that ...

BTW everything must be on the billag website, and I can remember we disscussed that some time ago on the list.

Cheers.

Will.

Steven Glogger wrote:

hi sam

some weeks/months ago we all got a nice letter (little booklet) from billag which explained the whole stuff. unfortunately i haven't got it at home. but they say that a broadband connection and windows pc with media player (or anything similar) can act as a radio and therefore you'll have to pay.

but anyway: do you got a car? does this car has a radio? if yes: you have to pay anyway ;-)) maybe you can take the billag then on expenses ;-))

-steven

-----Original Message----- From: swinog-bounces@lists.swinog.ch [mailto:swinog-bounces@lists.swinog.ch]On Behalf Of samuel clakre Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 3:02 PM To: swinog@swinog.ch Subject: [swinog] Visit of Billag AG at home !

Hi all,

Sorry for my english !

Yesterday evening I had the visit of Billag AG at home. I have neither TV ,radios. I have just ADSL. I say to him that some time I to listen to the radios on the Internet. Cost it wanted to make me pay the royalty for the radios. Because I had a broad-band connection and a PC!!! I shine request papers official on what it wanted to tax me, it unfortunately had anything on him has to present to me.

3 slanging match after !

I say to him that when www.couleur3.ch is typed I have the radios without anything asked and without warned that I must pay billag to listen.

It is to retract in me say that I had the subscription that it thought. It thought that I had the subscription of bluewin Internet + radios.

Who has a url with these law of billag??

Regards

sam

-- Samuel Clarke _____________________________________ Cortex ISP S.A. Rue Alexandre-Gavard 16 CH - 1227 Carouge Tel : 0844 CORTEX (0844 267 839) Fax : +4122 307 78 11 http://www.cortex.ch

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Wooups.

So this is only a french thing ?

Does this means that, as long as your unaware of the fact you should be paying Billag for a broadband access, you're not in a illegal situation ?

I have to re-read all those documentation sent. Thanks for the links guys, I was missing a lot of content about that subject.

Pascal Gloor wrote:

...

The fact is, " Nul n'est sensé ignorer la loi ",

In fact, this doesn't exist in Switzerland.

---

We're way out of topic ;)

So this is only a french thing ?

yes.

Does this means that, as long as your unaware of the fact you should be paying Billag for a broadband access, you're not in a illegal situation ?

no. but this means that some tourist definitely cannot be aware of 26 different local laws (cantons) and will /perhaps/ not get a fine.

some good reference, sorry french only http://www.franceloisirs.ch/affichage/affichagelong.jsp?produitAccedeAvecCat...

Pascal

OK, so tell me where, as a non-technical user, I can buy a PC without "media-capable" software installed, or a car without the same, or even a phone :)

I see your point, but I'd rather say "let's be honest and say that it's just an alibi tax" rather than "oh, we're really only taxing the people who benefit from Le Service Public" which is essentially what the statement is now.

I think the whole thing is extremely disingenuous (and I'm not blaming Billag, even though I think they're a gang of c***s, they're just the enforcers.)

-John

Daniel Kamm wrote:

On Fri, 2005-04-22 at 15:20 +0200, Willy van Gulik wrote: [...]

...

I own a car and didn't plugged the antenna so I m unable to receive any FM Radio and so on. My building hasn't any antenna connection to cable or whatever.

[...]

Sorry, this might be fully OT, but never mind.

Let's back up the whole 'Billag' thing. About 60% has got and/or:

• radio receivers in the house or in the car or incl in the handy
• tv receivers (incl. UMTS handy receivers)
• broadband access with installed media players

So there might be around 2-5% of swiss households who doesn't have any media receivers according to the actual law. In early days there had been more, ok, but their getting fewer and fewer (also because more and more receivers are taxable).

So why don't we/they stop the whole thing and make everyone liable to pay those taxes? We could safe much administration expense, e.g. all the wages of those ppl who are checking our hoseholds. And this will finally lower those taxes and make them affordable for everyone.

Any drawback? This will raise the unemployment. Just an idea...

Have a nice weekend

• Dan

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swinog mailing list swinog@lists.swinog.ch http://lists.swinog.ch/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swinog

Hey that's actually not a bad idea. I'm not a lawyer, but in my mind, making networked computers and similar devices (cell phones with radios?) part of the scope of the Billag thing, they might be creating a legal precedent.

Have any of the ISPs ever thought of actually getting together and saying "hey, guys, we're providing part of this 'service public' if you're going to tax computers on networks as well, so we should get our share of the Billag money"?

A similar question: do the cable tv network providers get any of this money? Just curious. Because what's happening is you're taxing customers of service 'x' with Mwst., then taxing them again with a third party tax which then goes to service 'y' (SF DRS, etc.) Sounds like something for the WeKo :)

-John

Chris Burri wrote:

Futhermore, if receiving streams must be taxed because of "service public", then lille ole Swisserland should start pouring money into ISPs here, pronto! After all, they're the ones *enabling* this "service public".

hi

Am 22.04.2005 um 15:05 schrieb Steven Glogger:

some weeks/months ago we all got a nice letter (little booklet) from billag which explained the whole stuff. unfortunately i haven't got it at home.

yes, and some days later they have to correct it.

discussion: http://www.symlink.ch/search.pl?query=billag

more info: http://www.tagi.ch/dyn/news/wirtschaft/455662.html http://www.newsbyte.ch/start.cfm? gruppe=NEWS&rubrik=alle&startid=65525&action=1 http://www.billag.com/ratv/de/news/details.php?id=571

cheers

reto

Additionally:

http://www.billag.com/ratv/de/news/details.php?id=571

(german news link, but I guess if you click on "FR" it will appear in French too)

Cheers, Viktor

swinog-bounces@lists.swinog.ch schrieb am 22.04.2005 15:16:01:

Samuel:

The Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM; in German "BAKOM") has changed the rules after the beginning of this year. Now PCs with a broadband connection are treated as radio receivers (see http://www.

bakom.ch/en/radio_tv/gebuehren/grundlagen/radio_fernsehgeraete/index.html).

Billag is only in charge of charging. The law (which is the "Radio- und Fernsehverordnung vom 6. Oktober 1997 (RTVV)" http://www.admin. ch/ch/d/sr/c784_401.html) says, you have to pay as soon as you have a deveice that is capable of receiving radio or tv programmes (and not whether you actually do it!).

Regards, Juerg Reimann

-- jradio.ch St. Jakobstrasse 39 CH-8004 Zürich +41 43 544 07 70

business card: http://jradio.ch/contact/ security keys: http://jradio.ch/pubkeys/

---

From: swinog-bounces@lists.swinog.ch [mailto:swinog-bounces@lists. swinog.ch] On Behalf Of samuel clakre Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 3:02 PM To: swinog@swinog.ch Subject: [swinog] Visit of Billag AG at home !

Hi all,

Sorry for my english !

Yesterday evening I had the visit of Billag AG at home. I have

neither

TV ,radios. I have just ADSL. I say to him that some time I to listen to

the radios on the Internet. Cost it wanted to make me pay the royalty for the radios. Because I had a broad-band connection and a PC!!! I shine request papers official on what it wanted to tax me, it unfortunately had anything on him has to present to me.

3 slanging match after !

I say to him that when www.couleur3.ch is typed I have the radios without anything asked and without warned that I must pay billag to

listen.

It is to retract in me say that I had the subscription that it

thought.

It thought that I had the subscription of bluewin Internet + radios.

Who has a url with these law of billag??

Regards

sam

     --

Samuel Clarke _____________________________________ Cortex ISP S.A. Rue Alexandre-Gavard 16 CH - 1227 Carouge Tel : 0844 CORTEX (0844 267 839) Fax : +4122 307 78 11 http://www.cortex.ch

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