UK Government Announces Broadband Tax 252
Barence writes "The UK Government is planning a 50p-per-month levy on fixed-line connections to pay for next-generation broadband. The Government claims that market forces alone will bring fiber connections to only two thirds of the country, so it plans to use the 'broadband tax' to pay for the final third by 2017. The plans form part of the Government's Digital Britain report, which also see the UK guarantee connections of 2Mbits/sec for every citizen by 2012." The report also threatens legal action and bandwidth restriction for repeat file sharers.
Repeat file sharers get bandwidth restriction? (Score:5, Interesting)
At 2Mb/s, I'd say the entire country gets punished right from the start. This sort of speed is okay, but it's hardly the future.
The worrying bit is here .... (Score:2, Interesting)
>The Government says it will make it "easier and cheaper" for rights holders to take civil action against file sharers.
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>What's more, it will "place an obligation on ISPs to maintain records of the most frequent offenders, which would allow rights holders to take targeted legal action against these >infringers."
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>Finally, ISPs will be roped in to protect copyright material, restricting bandwidth to known filesharers, and even blocking access to certain protocols entirely.
ONLY approved protocols available - that's dictatorship, not government. Thank fuck that we'll be rid of the ruling party for a very long time (possibly for ever) after next June
Re:Good thing. If done right. (Score:5, Interesting)
This actually *is* a good thing - if the money inmediately is used for the intended purpose: Bringing nation-wide Broadband fast.
Unfortunately given the track record of our government, I can't say I'm hugely optimistic about that. This smells of the kind of private-public partnerships that our government is so fond of, where they can claim a low up-front cost for a scheme, but it ends up costing more than they thought, with the private companies raking it in at the tax payers expense. See for example the PFI hospital schemes [timesonline.co.uk] that Mr Brown championed so keenly. I expect the telcos in line to be involved in this are rubbing their hands with glee.
Big problem with this. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Repeat file sharers get bandwidth restriction? (Score:1, Interesting)
I live a mile out of Southampton (population ~250,000), and I'm barely scraping 2Mbit. The problem is that new housing estates go in as the towns grow, but new exchanges don't, meaning my copper phone line is about 3.5km long, and the exchange is heavily contended. Smaller towns generally have far better internet speeds due to on average shorter line lengths.
Re:Interesting scheme... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well I'm not sure about the case with Virgin, who don't share their lines, but BT is obliged to, as the GP somewhat rudely said. So at least in terms of BT, who own all the non-cable last mile infrastructure in the country, it's not handing them alone a gift, although they will profit from it, it's also a gift to all the ADSL providers that use BT's infrastructure (at least the last mile), which is all of them.
Still, I'm not sure what a better solution is tbh, considering the current situation. A better contract at the time of privatisation would have been a solution, but that horse has bolted.
Re:What good will this do (Score:2, Interesting)
That 50p extra per month they want to charge me is exactly the 50p they gave me back a few months ago when they dropped the VAT on my £20 pcm broadband bill from £3 to £2.50. And now they want that back...
Oh wait, aren't they getting that back in December when they hike the VAT rate back up again? And that's assuming that it only goes back up to 17.5% rather than the 20% everyone's expecting... :(
New labour, new (stealth) taxes.
Re:Big problem with this. (Score:2, Interesting)
What some in the UK think about this report. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Repeat file sharers get bandwidth restriction? (Score:3, Interesting)
[S]omewhere around 2GB isn't unreasonable for most people's usage (I run a few websites on top of normal browsing, but the only times I think I have gone over were downloading Linux Live CDs).
2GB is enough if all people do is email and websites (but then, dial-up is enough for that...). As soon as you step into the 21st century, it is woefully underproportioned even if you don't do big downloads: 2GB per month is just enough for 1 hour/day of internet radio or skype OR 15 mins/day of low-rez Youtube. If someone actually wanted to use the BBC iPlayer that he paid for with his TV tax, his quota would be used up within an afternoon...
Point being: If you cripple the use of broadband by limiting it with small transfer quotas, you might as well save the money...
Re:Should the rich pay for your TV too? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm confused as to why people always think that progressive taxes will take money out of their pay packets. Wealth distribution is massively skewed and any fair taxation system would tax the richest and leave the regular people alone.
Re:Pointless (Score:2, Interesting)
Plus, BTs mandate only extends to universal service for phone systems and 14.4Kbit/sec capable lines. Stop moving the goal posts.
Satellite internet not good enough? (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't matter, anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
They can say what they want, but next year the Tories will win and scrap most of this plan.
The Tories are not in bed with telcos, credit-card manufacturers and "creative industries", they have different sponsors (oil companies, "old money", etc). The flow of pork will be redirected accordingly. This report is hardly worth the digital paper it is printed on.
Re:Brits love paying tax, so let them pay. (Score:1, Interesting)
"A brit version of PBS".
Hahaha.
Hahahahahaha.
God love PBS for persevering in your race to the intellectual bottom of a television market, but PBS is a pale shadow of the BBC, which we don't sneer at, don't find to be either elitist or overly populist and are enormously proud of.
The licence fee burns a bit, for sure, but the alternative is sponsorship, advertising, or endless subscription drives. The absence of adverts on major mainstream channels also limits their pervasiveness in the competition.
Live here for a while before you assume we are blindly and uneducatedly being taxed for little reason.
On your central point, I mostly agree, actually. I think the licence fee comparison is not wholly implausible, though I am rather less certain it will work as well.
Re:Pointless (Score:3, Interesting)