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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.

Why should we be taxed on broadband they already get vat from us,it's another petrol tax,50p is not the point,these losers will collect it and pee it up against the wall,it's starts at 50p then you watch it rise and rise.

There has always got to be taxes, and to think any other way would be pretty stupid and yes investments have to be paid for and no one can really argue against that. My argument would be, the 50p won't stay long and it will increase, however whatever the level it increases to it won't all be put into the Broadband services, It will be creamed off for other uses. If all the money collected from road tax was spent on roads there would not be a bad road in the country. As we all know we will be paying a broadband tax and not receiving the full benefit from it.

The broadband levy wont cover the full public cost of FTTH, nevermind anything else, so I fail to see how it will be used for anything else.

If the government pushes ahead with its long-term goal of FTTH, BT have only been able to commit about £1.5 billion to the project, it will cost at least £10 billion, so even if the money you paid in x month was used for fixing a manhole cover lol, you would still get more than your monies worth n the long-term. But then the shortfall that still exists will have to be generated either from other taxes, or alternatively, from public sector cuts.

In an ideal world, this would have all been done in the late 90's, like in Japan etc, but we live in the UK unfortunately.

The funny thing is, I remember NTL and BT (the original NTL as in when they were a broadcast and IP company, before they moved into cableco's) in the early 90's, saying they were looking to implement a fully fibre network for future technologies and communications, so its not something that is new.

Also, remember, we are only talking £170 million per year here - that's not a huge sum of money, and certainly not enough to have revenue "creamed off for other uses", when we consider the escalating costs of implementing a new network standard and format.

It's £6 per year - id be happy to pay £6 per month if it could get our network up to the same standard as other countries.

Also, BT may be ploughing a couple of billion into the network - but as I say, we are all going to pay for it, they are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. The 21CN is the most direct reason for static L2TP charges and increasing line-rental charges over the past 3 years. Unfortunately, 21CN is merely a stop-gap with a very short term lifespan - in fact, when one takes into consideration LLU that has been going on since Bulldog came about 7 years ago, with regards internet services, 21CN is wildly obsolete.

Matt, your assuming its going to stay at 50p a month, if past taxes are anything to go by and whatever government is in power, its most certainly won't, and i will suggest it again, it will get to a level that will far exceed whats needed for broadband services, in my opinion it will be taxed the same way and be made a money spinner as tobacco, alcohol, and petrol etc are.

Yep. We all know the drill by now. 50p per month does not sound too bad but after a year that 50p will become 80p, the next year £1.20, next year £1.90 etc etc. Broadband users will become another cash cow. This will be just the start.

Okay, it seems everyone on this forum is in favour of public sector cuts instead of a small levy on service, to raise the required funding for the future development of this countries IP communications infastructure.

Fair enough, ill accept that, but don't any of you start moaning when Labour begin their public-sector cuts next year (and im a lifetime Conservative member btw).

You ask, you get. It's either tax, or cut - you can't have your cake and eat it.

A broadband levy is the fairest way to tax - but it appears the good people of Wiki prefer cuts...

matt, wtf should the goverment feel they should tax something that they dont own to make it better. surly the likes of virgin or bt should be funding this with the vast profits they make.....

Bt is a PLC and so are the IP,s and they should be putting the money in to make it work,why should we get taxed to pay for this as no doubt they will up the price of broadband and take the profits,we will end up paying twice,once on the broadband price hike and once on the tax hit and no doubt on higher VAT because they will put vat on the 50p tax and of course we will never own the equipment we have been taxed for,no and no and no again,it's a tax on broadband pure and simple.

Because it's not in the telco's interest ether financially or service-wise to do so. It is in the public interest, but not the corporate interest. We want better and faster services, they are more than happy with what they are doing now.

Also, the cost is prohibative to the telco's, there is very little money in internet servicesbecause people want pricing as low as possible (the internet was never deemed affordable to most, until it came below £20 per month), yet people expect companies to invest tens of billions of pounds, which may take them decades to recover.

I don't see what the problem is - every other country is investing in the future of their IP communications infastructure, but we don't want to. So in 10 years time, when we are left lagging behind the rest of the world, you fookers will start slating our internet services, in the same way as you all slate our transport systems, our hospitals our car industry etc, which are all failing us now, due to lack of investment in the past.

It says a lot when even Nigeria and Rwanda are investing billions in the future of their IP communications networks right now, yet our public think we should leave well alone and not progress.

If the government sting the money from us in a snide way, it would get called a stealth tax and ridiculed, instead they are being open and honest, and people still find fault with it.

And just to put facts straight, BT are investing billions into the network already, £1.5 billion is planned in FTTH over the next few years, and they have spent the last few years investing billions in upgrading their entire network and rollowing out the 21CN, which will have/already is having benefits to everyone using non-LLU internet services.

However, I reguarly see people moaning that non-LLU internet services never seem to drop (this is related to the wholesale L2TP cost) and that also people moaning that BT keep increasing the cost of fixed line rental charges every year or so. And please don't confused BT Group with BT Retail - BT Retail makes a very small amount of money from internet services, BT Group is the investing arm, via Openreach.

Great let BT invest in the Internet and if people want a speedy broadband service then they will get BT to supply it,good business for them, why should I or anybody else be forced to "invest" our money,in what should be an investment by the Carrier PLC's,it's just like our goverment,they forced us "invest" in the banks,we pay and we pay and get no return,let them get the money from their shareholders and if there is any risks they carry it,if they sell hi speed and people buy it, great,they make pots of money for the shareholders,it's capitalism at it's best,my answer is still no,we shouldn't pay this tax.

Let BT invest. Okay, so then you will moan when internet services and phoneline costs soar, as a private, profit-driven company tries in vein to claw back billions of pounds of investment and somehow turn a profit. If a private company can make a profit out of something, they will be more than happy to invest, rule number 1 in business is to speculate to accumulate. BT has highligted the area's of the country where it is financially viable for them to upgrade the network to fibre, and unfortunately, due to the excessively high costs, whilst this actually covers quite a large percentage of the population, it does not cover the entire network. Take an area like my fathers, if telco's wont even unbundle his exchange because the economics don't work, and the 21CN is not set for roll-out till the arse-end of the programme in 2011, how can one ever say it would be considered financially viable for a private company to invest potentially tens of millions in upgrading the network that serves his area??

They are investing, they are not getting something for nothing; in the same way as we are not. We need/want better internet services for the future, not the ISP's. The ISP's are quite happily making profits (just) and running reliable and affordable services.

If people want to stay with what we have now, that's fair enough, but im guessing that in the future as higher and higher bandwidth applications become increasingly commonplace and sought after, people will then start to moan that they/we are getting left behind. To be honest, were it not for the advent of cheap stopgap technologies like RADSL and ADSL2 that have proven somewhat affordable to ISP's to invest in and roll-out in urbanised area's, then people would have spent the last 5 years doing nothing but crying for public investment into internet services and noteably FTTH.

All the major countries in the world, have inested in or are planning to invest in fully redundant fibre services, and all are planning and expecting to use public money to do so.

The two main players that arnt - the UK and the US - the two with the slowest and most restrictive, incompatible and generally obsolete levels of residential internet services in the developed world, and guess what, it's the two that don't seem to want to spend any public money in developing their services.

Red Dog could change peoples entire conception of whether or not we need such a strong and powerful infastructure - and why should we not shoulder the cost so we, the public, can make use of such systems in the future. But I guess its the same old story as with everything in this country, live for today, fook tomorrow, that's what has got us into all the shit in the first place. How about plan for tomorrow whilst moderately enjoying life today instead?

I would tax Matt simply for using more then 5 lines per reply!!

And you think if and when the carriers PLc get this tax they will use this tax to give the rest of the country broadband as far a I am concerned all we will get is flying pigs for our "investment",the tax will end up in the shareholders pockets,just like the rest of our "investments" do in this country,everything will be going up to sky high prices from next year just to pay the interest on the trillions that this lot have "invested" for us, no and again no,it's a tax on broadband, the next thing they will do is make us have a Licence to use broadband,yes that is coming via the EUSSR.

I think our problem matt is the fact that we feel our gov is letting us down, this expensess lark has really hit home and now the last thing we want to do is give them more of our hard earned cash to squander on their own 2nd homes etc. Perhaps if we had a guarentee that the 50pence was going to be spent on the internet then we wouldn't be too bothered. But I just dont trust them too, and I feel it will get spent else where.

Give em time and they'll find a way to bring back window tax!!

did there use to be a window tax on homes ?

Read and learn

joke that.

Yup they really did that.. mad!!

Don't forget they are also talking about a pation tax, which they will be able to pick up on google earth. The lunatics are in charge of the asylum. The idea is to provide broadband to those who are too idle to go out and work and earn the money to get the gear for themselves. Joe Soap will be paying for them again. How many will just get the gear and flog it for gear.

I think it comes down to who do you trust a Nigarian 419? scammer or the 640 uk politicians,both want my money and both want to use my money to provide luxuries for themselves and both tell lies to extract it from me.

Bugger, meant to say patio tax, don't even know what a pation is never mind tax one.

Thank God, you had me worried, I've got loads of Pation's.

Did a fibre optics installation course 9 yrs ago so as to get in on the ground floor. Supposed to be a huge network all over the country and Australia was going to put a giant loop in as well. Two weeks after I finished the course the contractors, subbed to NTL, stopped doing it and never heard of anything since. Ended up working in a pork pie factory. BT hands tied as can't compete with cherry pickers, who bought up the profitable bits, for years to come. It would have been a cracking job if it had come off, instead 2 grand down the swanee. If you want a service pay for it yourself don't expect someone else to pick up the tab, ergo if the people who don't want broadband don't pay for it then they don't get it and don't have to be taxed on someone else's behalf.

Can you get them on e-bay?