New broadband tax announced by the Government

In order to pay for investment into the next-generation of broadband service the Government has announce that it plan to put a 50p per month charge on all fixed-line broadband connections.

The announcement of the new “broadband tax” came in the Digital Britain report that was recently released by the communications minister, Lord Carter, who will shortly be leaving the Government.

It was claimed by Ben Bradshaw, the Culture Secretary, that the securing of a fibre-optic broadband

network deployment throughout the UK could not be achieved with investments purely from the private sector when he announced the latest proposals in front of the House of Commons.

Bradshaw said “Left to the market, true super-fast broadband will only reach two thirds of homes and businesses in the next decade.”

download beyond the sea dvd The Government has announced in the report that it is “considering a number of options”, one of which is the “a supplement in the region of 50p a month on fixed lines which would raise money for a ‘Final Third’ fund that would be used to secure roll out to the final third of the UK population.”

The original promise of 2Mbps broadband to everyone in the UK by 2012 made by the Government in the interim report has also been reaffirmed in the final release of the report.

The promise will be achieved by “several elements including simple and complex in-house wiring solutions, deploying fibre to the street for a selected number of cabinets and a wireless solution using either mobile or satellite”.

Although the broadband industry will need to pay the cost of rolling out either a fixed or a wireless service in order to achieve the expected 2Mbps speed the government has admitted that the customer will probably need to pay to fix any issues relating to in-house wiring that is required.

The report claimed “It is not possible to include quantitative information on the expected costs and benefits of these proposals as they may influence the outcome of the subsequent competitive tendering process. These will be published in a final impact assessment which will be produced once this has taken place.”

Source – www.pcpro.co.uk