Forums Forums National News Broadband tax...

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what a friggin joke.

would you not be effected if you were on "new" technology like Fibre optics?

If you read the story the idea behind it is to fund a "national super highway"

What are they going to do, nationalise a privatised function

Take no notice in what they say its going to be used for, it won't be, after all, all your road tax is not spent on roads.

More money for wars and surveillance.
All broadband has been on fibre optics unless I've been under a rock for 20 years, Virgin just used that to sell their product.

I don't get it... this was announced months ago when the Digital Britain report was released. No point in moaning about it now, if people were too bonidle to take any notice when it was actually announed.

The government are going to use the money for FTTH, which will cost in the region of £10 billion, and this "tax" won't make up the shortfall, just ease it, so I doubt they will be using it for anything else. If we don't generate money from a levy, it has to be borrowed, then you will all moan because borrowing has increased yet again, leading to further cuts.

Why you all moaning about 50p a month anyway, I bet you all waste more than that on useless crap in a day!! If you don't want to pay it, you have a choice ffs!

Its 50p now but i can guarantee it won't be anything like that in years to come. Its an old ploy, cheap until everyone needs or relies on it and then up it goes. Haven't done any research but i wouldn't mind betting that in real terms the broadcasting licence, road tax, etc, etc, don't resemble anywhere near what they were when they were introduced.

Bit harsh that Matty.

You live your life on the computer, its how you earn your money, I on the other hand don't so I am not up to date with current things.

its not that its 50p. its that its another way of taking our money that gets me down.

whats next?

As I say, you don't have to pay it, its not a compulsary tax, so whats the problem?

I don't remember anyone moaning about it when the Digital Britain report was released, and don't say nobody noticed it because it never made the news, because it was the biggest story of the day, and one of the biggest of the year in terms of technology.

People will have to pay it or give up what they have become accustomed to, we don't have to pay our TV licence or road tax but no one gives up those items. As i said before it won't stay at 50p for long and they know people will pay it no matter what, because they can't give these things up.

The way I see it, for most people, the internet is a luxury. If people can't afford luxuries, they don't have them, simple. For people like me, it is a nessecity, so we have to pay it - and I still don't have a problem with it.

Broadband pricing in general, has crashed through the ground since the mass-introduction of LLU, if anyone on Wirral nowadays is paying more than £10 per month for their broadband, then they are pretty stupid to be honest. Whereas, were my dad lives, there has been no LLU so far, so he has to pay a fee of £15+ per month. So a massive amount are already saving an absolute bomb anyway, well more than 50p. We have some of the lower broadband pricing in the western world, though we don't have the speed to go with it, due to a lack of modern technologies like FTTH.

Working in the industry, I deal with the real cost of IP transit on a daily basis, and trust me, this charge is more than fair, the cost of installing and maintaining a massive fibre-optic network is immense, if we want to keep up with the rest of the world, the investment has to come from somewhere, and I don't feel its fair that the general public should shoulder that cost, it should be the people who use broadband. I don't actually think it should be so general as to tax people who have a fixed line, it should be a broadband service levy, like a electricity and gas have a 5% VAT levy.

If they aim it at fixed lines, that potentially penalises people who do not use, and do not intend to use, the net at home, but want a phoneline, and it also creates a loophole for those without fixed line broadband (GRPS, UMTS, HSDPA, DOCSIS, Wifi, WiMAX, Satellite and other emerging technolgies etc)

Matty you are hitler brought back to life as a rover driving young man lol!

I think its wrong though to tax the internet, everything has tax and it wrong, like VAT. Its suppost to be put on non life esential things like tv's chocolate, cars etc etc, but why is it on water ?

I have to pay £15 a month. I bought a new build house that had no phone line. I had no choice but to pay for a BT line an internet.

Okay then, so essentially, what everyone is saying, is they don't want a modern IP network, that has both the capacity and technological capability to handle future communication?

Face it, the investment has to come from somewhere, and we will pay for it one way or another. The reason the cost of a BT fixed line has shot through the roof (in relative terms) in the past 3 years? To pay for the 21CN. This is also the reason the wholesale cost of an L2TP on the BT network has not changed much in the past decade.

If the public sector does not pay for it, the private sector will find the costs pohibitive in such a competitive market, and will be reluctant to do so - if they do, we will end up paying the cost to prive companies instead. If public money is to be used for this, id rather those that use it pay for it, rather than just everyone, and id rather they raise the money through a nominal tax, rather than cutting back on public services to make up the shortfall.

If you had paid Openreach for the phoneline cost, you could have had an ATM on the line from any provider - if you have been forced into using BT, you have recieved a promotional deal, which you have benefitted from.

Openreach only charge £129 maximum for a phoneline installation, particuarly on new builds, the costs can be over £1000 to install a phoneline. Personally, I think it should be law that the developer should provision future IP communication access with all new-builds, but so far the government has not taken much notice of this problem.