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.
Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
BT still owns the all the backbone connectivity and makes obscene profits on it. Taxing users in order to make more connections to that backbone monopoly is totally wrong.
Re:Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't you mean they own the last mile [wikipedia.org]? Given that it's uneconomical to have loads of different companies constantly digging up the roads to wire up their own customers, then you have to choose either 1) the state lets a single company do it and regulates (what the UK has now) or 2) a state owned company does it (what the UK used to have). The interesting thing here is that in both cases the company was BT. A third possibility might be that the last mile infrastructure is communally owned but building and maintenance is put out to tender to private companies.
Greedy corrupt control freak UK government (Score:5, Insightful)
A fourth possibility is they pay for it out of the cost to the people who need better connections outside of the major cities.
Getting others to pay for it is nuts. Also where does this thinking end? Can the government simply choose ever more ways to tax people to give to yet more companies to partially fund what the company should be earning from the sale of its products.
Also they are selling a rubbish product. 2Mbits is obsolite now. So do they then come back in a few years time, to take even more money to pay to upgrade it to say 8Mbits
What is it with the current UK government. Their greedy corrupt control freak attitude seems to have no end. I love how they spin it as (implied *just*) 50p-per-month levy. That sounds so much better than £6 (about $10) extra tax per year. The UK Government gives hundreds of billions to their rich banker friends and then their friends in telecoms also want some free extra money, so the Government decides to take some more money from people. Haven't they given enough already this year?!?. £6 may not be much when you have a job, but its a lot for the elderly on a pension. Also if someone walked up to you in the street and just tried to take that amount of money off you, everyone would complain about it, yet this government can just decide to take it wherever they wish.
Its not as if BT are short of money... "BT to freeze pay of 100,000 employees"
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Also they are selling a rubbish product. 2Mbits is obsolite now. So do they then come back in a few years time, to take even more money to pay to upgrade it to say 8Mbits ... then come back again and again taking ever more money every few years. Each time taking millions more to pay for incremental upgrades.
Get serious. Nobody's going to run fiberoptics to every farm on the countryside, if they tried you'd be paying 600 GBP instead of 6 GBP. Many people outside population centers are still stuck on dialup, and ADSL would be a big upgrade. At least if they mean 2Mbit and not "up to" in the week with three sundays. Broadband is probably one of the most disproportionally distributed services, everywhere you can get power and water and phones but 10Mbit+ lines is almost exclusively in big cities.
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So what? Living in a suburban or rural area has its advantages and disadvantages. If the residents of an area want to have higher speed Internet access, then they can petition their local government to have a referendum in which the local residents determine if they want to fund the necessary infrastructure.
Broadband is probably one of the most disproportionally distributed services, everywhere you can get power and water and phone
Re:Greedy corrupt control freak UK government (Score:4, Informative)
High speed Internet access is a luxury.
73% of the UK disagree with you [bbc.co.uk]:
UK consumers now believe broadband is becoming as essential a utility as electricity or water, according to a panel of government advisers. Some 73% of those questioned described a high-speed connection as important.
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You are failing...
No *I'm* not.
73% of the UK believe they have a severely impaired quality of life without broadband; and compare the lack of it to having a lack of fresh running water. That's what the article says, and that's what I was pointing out.
Re:Greedy corrupt control freak UK government (Score:5, Insightful)
Post that here, got modded +1 Insightful. Post that in South Korea, get modded +1 Funny.
Re:Greedy corrupt control freak UK government (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, I can afford 50p a month and if it actually goes toward dragging our country into the 21st Century, then I'm fine with it. I don't care if I have to subsidize a few people out in the countryside. The more people that have a decent connection, the better for UK businesses that rely on it. It also inches us toward telecommuting being viable which (a) reduces congestion in and out of the cities, (b) reduces the environmental impact on all of us and (c) lowers housing costs in built up areas.
But mainly it's just that it's 50p a month. If the government came round all our doors and asked for £6.00 to improve our country's broadband infrastructure, I'd happily stick it in the tin so long as I knew the money wasn't disappearing into BT's (or any other one company's) bank account.
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Its not as if BT are short of money... "BT to freeze pay of 100,000 employees" ... while "Ian Livingston, the chief executive, stands to make more than £6 million in bonuses this year if performance targets are met. This is on top of his basic salary of £850,000." ... Its a corrupt arragant UK government giving millions more to an arragant corrupt boss treating his staff with contempt.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article5890128.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
No, its not as if BT are short of money, but why should they suffer the cost of a non profitable market sector? You can already gain access to the last mile infrastructure, but the problem is no third party has done it for these outlying areas. So why should BT?
Re:Greedy corrupt control freak UK government (Score:5, Insightful)
A fourth possibility is they pay for it out of the cost to the people who need better connections outside of the major cities.
If you follow that line of thinking then may be people who live in outside major cities should pay more road tax or may be cancer patients should pay more for expensive drugs. We generally have fair minded policies in the UK and recognise that what you loose on supporting others you gain by what they contribute to you. If dairy farmers have to pay more for braodband (and they have to use things like the Cattle Movement Service on line) then they will put that on the price of milk, or go out of business. How about next time you vist Scotland the broadband in the hotel costs 10x as much as in a city?
What's a stake here is really the ability to distribute internet TV. We will all be better off if TV moves to internet rather than broadcast which requires high energy radio transmission and all the attendant cost. But you can't move to internet only TV unless everyone is on broad band. It would be a lot better to stop the digital TV roll-out and use that money to fund braodband.
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or may be cancer patients should pay more for expensive drugs.
They already do.
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Re:Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
So I don't think its altogether fair to round on BT for this - the option for other companies to freely compete in these areas has been around for several years, and it has failed. So why should BT be forced to supply ADSL to outlying areas in a lossmaking fashion when no one else will?
BT horrendously overcharges for bandwidth (Score:3, Insightful)
And they charge based on bits transferred, not bits able to be transferred. Meaning that the most economical way of selling broadband is to oversubscribe and blame other users on the slow connection.
Re:BT horrendously overcharges for bandwidth (Score:4, Funny)
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Best Funny moderation i've ever seen.
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You are coming across as someone who is a BT shill, or you directly benefit from BT's position in the market and abusive business practices, or are someone fighting with their conscience for voting for Thatcher for years, or are just an idiot who uncritically parrots BT's lies.
Ahh right, I disagree with your position so I am either paid by BT to do so, receive revenue from BTs actions, voted for Thatcher, or am just generally an idiot.
It can't *possibly* be that I have an opinion that differs from your own, now can it? No, it can't, because that obviously isn't allowed. This seems to be a common theme on Slashdot these days - I'm not allowed to take a stance different from yours, because obviously anyone that does has something to benefit from it.
Its people like you that are th
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Plus, BTs mandate only extends to universal service for phone systems and 14.4Kbit/sec capabl
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BT still owns the all the backbone connectivity and makes obscene profits on it.
Supposedly, though, the quid pro quo for BT inheriting a near-monopoly from the old, state-funded infrastructure is that they are under a Universal Service Obligation [ofcom.org.uk] that requires them to provide telephone serviced to all, and not to cherry pick.
Unfortunately, this only applies to Plain Old Telephone Services - and extending it to Broadband would vastly increase the cost...
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Re:Pointless (Score:5, Funny)
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When it's raining i lose another 2 Mbps and that's often here in the UK.
When it's raining my friend TOTALLY loses his internet connection. No, he's not in the middle of no-where, his exchange is about 4 miles away and BT refuse to do anything about it (or even admit there is a problem).
I hate to be a grammar nazi, but it is "lose" not "loose". Unless you have flappy tubes.
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ADSL2+ (used by Be) can only offer the full 24Mbps if you're less than about 500m from the exchange, regardless of the quality of the cable BT installed.
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.
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the point is that most people get more than that, unless they live far away from the exchange. People who live in the wilds, for example.
I get 7mbps, but to be fair, I'd happily pay 50p a month extra if it meant they laid fibre everywhere (my house in the metropolis first please) and I got 20mbps :) I'd even pay £1 more for something even faster...
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Re:Repeat file sharers get bandwidth restriction? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm on 3mbit, and I don't mind. I'd prefer more speed, but 3mbit is actually enough to watch HD stuff off gametrailers.com, and finish downloads reasonably fast. If I need to download something big, like a steam game, I can always leave my computer on overnight.
Much more important than raw speed - the amount of bandwidth. I get 200GB/mo, which is very difficult to use up entirely. Somehow I doubt the UK/BT will give its customers that much.
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Chances are it'll be closer to what I get from Sky for free as part of their "See, Speak, Surf" package: 2Mb/s and a 2GB/mo cap. 2Mb/s seems fast enough for everything I do (the round-trip response seems to be the longest part at times!) and somewhere 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).
High-speed broadband for everyone is a great idea, but when people are still mak
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[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
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Moreover, patches for OS, programs and games are now hundreds of megabytes big. For example, just new firmware for iphone is around 250MB.
Funny thing happened when I was away for two weeks depending only on a laptop with usb stick for mobile wireless. I have 500MB/month subscription and just after 5 days of my light surfing and mailing I was disconnected for doing more than 500MB. What happened? When I was away from the computer there was some OSX update and it eat all my monthly allowance. Btw, there shoul
These forces already lost in the govt.. (Score:2)
The UK government already made these empty threats about "3 strikes" before and never followed through with it.
Add to this EU measures against such disconnection and the failure of such measures in other nations for human rights reasons, and I don't see this as a credible threat, just a bunch of babbling on.
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I hope they at least mean that everyone should have at least 2Mb/s upload speed as well. At least here in Sweden there's a lot of people on ADSL that only have 1Mb/s upload.
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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.
Point taken, but my father-in-law is stuck on dial up, because, here in the US, we're waiting for the cable company to decide that it is economically feasible to provide service in his area. He would kill for 2Mb/s.
Interesting scheme... (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead of the gov' taxing people and placing down public broadband lines companies can compete over... They're literally handing a giant check to the existing two big broadband network suppliers (cable and DSL) and asking them to put down the lines. So in the long term they're just giving the broadband networks a larger subscriber base without any real public benefit.
There is nothing wrong with the tax but what they're using it for is flawed. It will lead to monopolies in most areas, or at best two options to pick from that both charge similar rates and provide similar services.
Re:Interesting scheme... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're giving the money to BT (DSL) and Virgin (cable). BT is a private for-profit company and as such will limit what it will allow competition to do and set the prices higher than a public network. Virgin [Media] doesn't allow people to use their network at all.
A public network is always the right answer. You set up the cables, maintain them, and then set the fees based on what you're paying to keep it up-and-running.
With your hugely sarcastic post you also didn't address why these private for-private companies should be getting a huge check out of the pocket of tax payers? Or a better question, why they're getting a huge check which they can then turn around and use to make EVERY MORE money? It is just handing them the keys to the vault.
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.
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The problem is it's only the last mile and cabinet access they're really forced to share.
They still do whatever they want with the backbone that everything connects back to, and as of last December they did a 24% increase in costs for ISPs connecting to their backbone.
The more OFCOM tells them to stop ripping everyone off on the last mile, the more they rip us all off further up the line where OFCOM takes no action.
Re:Interesting scheme... (Score:4, Insightful)
He addressed it as well as your outright assertion without any arguement to back it up. BT was a public company, the reason it was privatised was exactly because it wasn't perceived to be very good. The price of broadband in the UK has decreased hugely over the last couple of years, not least because of the competitive market. I won't make the case that private industry is better because it minimises waste often found in public companies, or that public owned is better because they don't have the motivation to profit gouge like private companies, either can work, especially when placed in a competitive environment.
No, wrong. BT was privatised because of the Tories (Score:2)
"BT was a public company, the reason it was privatised was exactly because it wasn't perceived to be very good"
With all due respect I think you need to unpack that sentence a bit. I don't think BT was privsatised because "it wasn't perceived to be very good", I think one of the main reasons it was privatised was because the government of the time - the right wing conservative party - adhered to a strategy of privatising public companies whereever possible.
(In 1979, the Conservatives, driven by an ideologica
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"The price of broadband in the UK has decreased hugely over the last couple of years, not least because of the competitive market."
Er, it has?
5 years ago I could downloads 100s of gb per month for £24.99. Then I could download about 100gb for £19.99 on peak.
Now I can download 20gbps for £24.99 on peak.
So not only is the price back where i started, but I only have a fraction of the bandwidth I used to get for that price.
I can only assume you're referring to the £5 packages or the free
Re:Interesting scheme... (Score:4, Informative)
They're giving the money to BT (DSL) and Virgin (cable). BT is a private for-profit company and as such will limit what it will allow competition to do and set the prices higher than a public network.
BT is tightly controlled on what it can and cannot do with regard to its infrastructure and allowing other companies to have access to it - there are fairly low upper limits to the pricing structure that BT can use to wholesale its lines, and there is always the option of Local Loop Unbundling.
The problem is, it always ends up with the profitable areas being cherry picked by providers, and the outlying areas being left in the cold. In these situations you have two options - subsidise BT to provide a loss making line, or have the government form a public entity to provide connectivity using wholesale or LLU lines.
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I don't think a public network is a wise answer to much of anything.
History, at least in the states, show that the government will siphon off as much as possible for other pet projects then raise their hands in ignorance and claim there isn't enough money to fix the roads, we need another tax. Then after the levies fail and people ask why it wasn't maintained better and the investigation showed that project that would have directly effected the failure points in the levies were diverted to build a couple of
What good will this do (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
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Problem is BT estimates that it will cost upwards of ã5Bn to do FttC.At 50p a month even if every household paid this. It would still take 37.9 years to raise that amount. Its totally pointless
The article says they are funding "fixed/wireless services", so that isn't what they're funding.
further more the problem in the UK is that all the politicans and BPI seem to have gotten it in their heads that all file-sharing is illegal regardless of whether it is family videos or the latest cinema release
No, you (and far too many other people) have gotten it into your head that they think that, and you won't let it go. Note that the government quote actually says "piracy of intellectual property" and not file sharing in general.
I know it's hard, and nobody really expects you to, but you should try reading the articles.
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The fact that they are concentrating on Fibre to the Cabinet is a disaster too. It's already old hat, with other countries moving to Fibre to the Home/Premises.
It doesn't help that Virgin Media keeps lying about having "fibre optic" broadband. They don't - they have analogue fibre to their cabinets, then it's copper to the home. What we need is digital fibre all the way to the wall socket.
FttC is the reason why we are aiming so low (2Mb) instead of looking at more useful speeds. 2Mb is barely enough for one
Didn't the US do something similar? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure I recall something about US phone companies being given vast quantities of money - officially to lay on broadband, but there were no sanctions written in to say "failure to lay on broadband will result in the money being repayable" or similar.
Quite what happened with the money I don't know but it wasn't spent on broadband.
Good thing. If done right. (Score:5, Insightful)
This actually *is* a good thing - if the money inmediately is used for the intended purpose: Bringing nation-wide Broadband fast. Which would mean that the runtime of this tax is limited to a few years, when every corner of the countryside has broadband.
This is actually quite different from the German GEZ fee for Internet capable devices. Which is bizar beyond anything concievable.
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No , you've got it all wrong, see? If you make the tax end when the whole country has broadband, you give the politicians a reason to never let you have broadband--if you get it, they lose revenues. And then how will they pay for things they actually care about? Better to have the tax not take effect until after you have your broadband. Make them work for your money.
Limited tme? (Score:2, Redundant)
I'm sure goverments spend alot of time thinking of new ways to tax people, hell they'd tax breathing air and having sex if they could. I've never seen a tax that is rescinded, tax revenue to goverments is like heroin to a junkie.
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.
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Good thing only in theory. But I always remember the example I can see from my windows. There is a big bridge connecting the shore and an island which was of build with public funds 30 years ago. They of course charge (and quite much) the crossing the bridge but they did promise that will go away as soon as the credit for the bridge is repaid (to banks I suppose). But you can almost guess what happened. People repaid for the bridge in just a couple of years but that charging didn't go away. They did buckle
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 prot
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I agree.
The problem is, the next government, the Conservatives, are more than happy with Labour's proposals on filesharing.
They're going to happen regardless I'm afraid out with the old dictator, in with the new. As Cameron refuses a change from first past the post because he knows it guarantees him and his party 100% power even with only 38% of popular vote he IS a dictator, just like Brown was a dictator on 0% of the vote and Blair on 35%. But that's the problem with Britain, we live in a country where FP
The actual report (Score:5, Informative)
Other major points in the report (from this BBC article [bbc.co.uk]):
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a three-year plan to boost digital participation
They're going to build a windmill? ;-)
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Note to government: "next generation" broadband is not ADSL or half fibre/half copper. It is pure fibre, with a symmetrical connection (same upload speed as download speed).
The views on copyright in the report (Score:2)
I thought one of the most interesting parts of the Digital Britain report was the commentary on copyright and related subjects, which took a reasonably realistic and balanced view IMHO, e.g.,
Big problem with this. (Score:4, Interesting)
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The rich already make a disproportionate contribution in the form of heavy income tax.
As far as I'm concerned, once they've done that they can then do what they like with what remains and should be able to do so on the same terms as everyone else.
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People with higher incomes are more likely to have most things. The richer they are the more they are going to spend. Which means they probably pay more in VAT in a month that you pay income tax in a year. And they've already paid a FAR bigger net percentage of their earnings in income tax than you.
Now you want to tax them extra not only on what they earn but also on what they spend. Just how much subsidising do people need?
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If bread was priced at a proportion of a person's income, then the poor would do a roaring trade on the black market by buying up loads of bread and selling it to the rich at twice the price they paid for it, but less than the rich would have to pay. It's an idiotic idea that doesn't take into account the market value of bread.
Broadband of course cannot be bought and sold like this because it's a service, not a product, and the physical aspects of it (i.e. infrastructure) is tied to geography.
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You replied to the wrong comment, I take it?
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I don't agree with your first point. First of all, rarely benefits everybody equally (not directly, anyway); those that contribute less generally receive more. You wouldn't expect the highest earners and the unemployed to benefit equally from unemployment benefit, for example.
Second, I'm not sure large companies will be large beneficiaries of this scheme, since they tend to be based in urban areas. Small companies based in rural areas will find it much easier to remain in those rural areas and contribute
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Surely the problem here isn't that the UK government is trying to raise taxes to pay for something that has a massive social benefit, but that it's doing it via a poll tax?
I think the theory is that such a small levy will be "competed away" (see Lord Carter quote in this article [bbc.co.uk]) and the people who will actually pay are the phone companies when they hand their monthly sack of 50p pieces over to the treasury.
However, while I'm sure that people who buy a line rental & calls package won't directly pay this levy, it will probably be paid by all the people (like myself) who want a minimal BT line for broadband, emergencies and those stupid fracking "local rate" 0845 numbers,
Should the rich pay for your TV too? (Score:2)
Why should the rich - or anyone else - pay for your home entertainment? And lets not kid ourselves that broadband is a vital public utility up there with water and electricty , it isnt, despite what some vested interests may proclaim. Apart from a few home workers its mostly used for recreation. Why should we be taxed on that??
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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.
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What do you have against the rich? Are you jealous of people who work hard and so earn more money? Most rich people do not have inherited wealth , they worked damn hard to get where they are so why should they cough up for lazy bastards who can't be bothered?
Also in most countries the more you earn the greater percentage you get taxed so the richer people do pay more than the poorer. I'm not sure what else you want? Perhaps everyone to earn the same as in stalinist russia? Brain surgeon earning the same as
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I agree, plus we are effectively subsidising people who live outside cities - am I'm willing to bet that in general that the demographic of these people will not be towards the low end of the income scale.
What some in the UK think about this report. (Score:4, Interesting)
ISPs doing other people's dirty work? (Score:4, Informative)
According to the article, the government is going to be getting the ISPs to do their dirty work for them, whatever we have as an RIAA/MPAA equivalent, and the police:
Sounds like they're making the ISPs track down the sharers so that the rights holders can just cherry-pick from a list. Sounds like a bad situation for the ISPs to get in to with things like "common carrier" statuses.
Again, looks like the ISPs aren't just going to be "carriers" any more. Could be quite a bad precedent (for the ISPs, at least). Also, what's the betting that a) the protocol blocks will be a blanket ban on BitTorrent, meaning that legitimate downloads (like Linux ISOs) will also be affected and b) they'll do it in such a way that's easily circumventable?
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That's exactly right. Reading chapter 4, it's clear that the only legislative change they will push for is to bring punishments for 'non-physical' copying in line with those already in place for 'physical copying'... but in both cases, only if the copying is done for SALE or HIRE or in the course of running a business (see s107 of the CDPA
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Surely that's part of the problem - it already is a criminal offence to do most of the things that the government wants to cover with laws like this. Copyright infringement is already a crime, just not one with a particularly high punishment and so personal instances (e.g. BitTorrent usage for MP3s) isn't prosecuted much.
I hope you're right, but I think you might be a bit optimistic. Even if the Labour govern
Common carrier and the UK (Score:2)
I believe no such thing exists in the UK.
This is why ISPs could freely implement deep packet inspection, phorm and so on without even asking anyone first as opposed to the US where the FCC etc. investigated usage of DPI in trying to disrupt Bittorrent.
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Point 28 of Chapter 4 is probably the most relevant:
Where did we hear that before? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yeah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund [wikipedia.org]
The goals of Universal Service are:
To promote the availability of quality services at just, reasonable, and affordable rates,
To increase access to advanced telecommunications services throughout the Nation,
To advance the availability of such services to all consumers, including those in low income, rural, insular, and high cost areas at rates that are reasonably comparable to those charged in urban areas.
We saw where that went.
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PS in a list like that, you need semicolons instead of commas.
Will there be a tax for new computers too? (Score:4, Insightful)
Since theres now going to be a tax for the underclass and people who are too tight to pay for broadband themselves shall we assume there'll also need to be a tax for these people to be given computers to use on said service?
Brits love paying tax, so let them pay. (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's not every TV, it's every household. If you own several TVs you just pay the one fee.
Anyway, I'd still happily pay twice as much if it keeps adverts out and generally stops our TV turning into some US-style brainless mess of right-wing nutjob shouting programmes.
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I would pay the licence fee (for BBC radio 3 and 4) if TVL (television licensing) weren't such complete pains.
Interestingly, it appears that the more uncooperative you are with them the less they hassle you. (Perhaps not surprising in that, AIUI, they actually achieve all their convictions due to self incrimination)
But the thought of the anguish it would cause if I bought a licence to support the BBC and then didn't renew it at some time in the future is sufficient to ensure that I'll never buy one. (I've a
Re: (Score:2)
Moving quickly on from your flamebait title, the licence fee is a stupid example.
Let's assume you are average and watch 70 days of TV per year. About 11 days of that will be adverts.
That's 75 cents an hour that advertiser pays network, for the product, ie: you to consume the ads.
Wow, that licence fee is starting to look like good value. Unless your day job pays less than 75c or your want to cut out the TV all together.
Satellite internet not good enough? (Score:4, Interesting)
Label the Carter Report 'defective by design' (Score:2)
The Carter Report is a fatally compromised blueprint for subversion that attempts to extend government control into a surprisingly vast array of areas.
1. Television. The existing licence fee is an outrage when the BBC via BBC Worldwide make heaps of money and yet refuse to make available their back catalogue for the benefit of the entire nation (well, they do but for a steep price). The report suggests we preserve the licence fee but siphon more off to commercial and quasi-commercial broadcasters?! Insane.
Two things (Score:2)
What's wrong with sharing files? (Score:4, Insightful)
I really do not like the way that most news outlets say that "file sharing" is illegal. It's not. Sharing *copyrighted* files is but in itself, the act of sharing isn't. The distinction is an an important one as producers of open source and even some musicians use sharing to their advantage, but it seems to be getting increasingly lost in the noise.
The danger is that the credibility of these new models will be eroded over time with the repetition of the general concept that sharing is wrong.
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.
As George Harrison once said (Score:2)
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
And you're working
for no one but me.
Re: (Score:2)
They want everyone to have high speed Internet access to a) let them view information on Government webistes more easily and b) so that they can go "look - we're improving the nation and bringing our communications technology up to date". Beyond that it depends what they intend to do with protocol blocking - they may allow legal filesharing to continue (e.g. Linux distros) but they might be stupid (this is the Government, after all) and blanket ban filesharing because of copyright infringement.
They money will go straight to the Treasury (Score:3, Insightful)
"how can we trust these idiots to actually spend the money on what they're levying the tax for?"
You can't and they won't. Just like road tax goes into the general pot so will this. Its just another way for our failed government to raise taxes.
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but it works, doesn't it? :-)
Nope. Not in the UK. You just get given no rights [guardian.co.uk], beaten [guardian.co.uk] and arrested under terrorism charges [dpreview.com]. Or worse. [guardian.co.uk]