Japan requires Internet users to pay a monthly 5G maintenance fee

Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications aims to provide high-speed Internet connectivity everywhere in the country, even in the most remote rural communities. By collecting these fees, Internet users will share the burden of maintaining 5G networks for service providers. The money collected will be used to support repairs and other costs of operators with fiber optic infrastructure in disadvantaged areas.

Mobile operators and other fiber-optic Internet service providers will be charged monthly fees, which are expected to be a few Japanese yen (equivalent to about VND 400) per subscriber.

Japan has about 700,000 households without access to fiber optic service. The government is encouraging operators to build their networks to these areas and hopes to reduce the number to 180,000 households by the end of March 2024.

Charges may begin to be collected as early as 2024, when the laying of optical cables in general is completed and carriers move on to maintain their network construction.

In the 2020 fiscal tax amendment, which was implemented last month, the government introduced a corporate tax reduction for major mobile carriers that helped speed up the installation of 5G base stations. It aims to use tax breaks to encourage rapid 5G development and user fees to support long-term maintenance of fiber optic networks.