So Gordon`s latest wheeze is to charge everyone with a landline `phone an extra 50p per month in order to pay for improved broadband speeds. It is frankly admitted that the money raised from this will be nowhere near sufficient to lay the necessary fibre optic cables to replace all the existing copper wires in rural and demote areas, but "Most people" will get the improved speeds necessary to watch television on the internet.
If, like me, you live at the very far end of a long overhead copper wire from the villiage telephone exchange, and your Broadband speed never gets above 970 Kbps then your connection isn`t going to improve, but it`s nice to think that somebody (with a better connection already that your own) is going to benefit from this extra tax on your miserly pension
this doesn't surprise me to say the least when were in a recession with no money to spare yet again labour has come up with yet another way to fleece us once again I'm waiting for the toilet flushing tax ,dame it its out there now how long before i go to spend a penny for every time i flush in my own house after I paid the water rates
I can't say I'll notice £6 a year... and the whole country benefits from improved communications. On the other hand, I can't see this raising much after the administration & set-up costs. Sounds like more New Labour well meant but badly thought out muddling to me!
It seems unfair to me to charge everyone. It should be a tax on those who benefit. A flat rate would be yet another tax that hits the poorest hardest.
It is time they found ways to ensure that the rich pay the same percentage tax as everyone else.
I am lucky although in a rural area we have great broadband. Pity about the digital TV, every time someone uses a lawn mower we loose the plot.
It would also be nice not to have to go into the garden to use the mobile phone.
its not the 50 p its the point overall we are expected to carry the can for something where the telephone companies should be picking up the can there the ones who will gain from us in the long run on a monthly tarriff .
i used to work for cabletel before NTL before virgin they spent millions to get optic in the ground for there infrastructure why cant bt spend its not as if they have had enough years earning from us all never replacing the copper cables in less they had too minimal effort (input) maximum charge applies here and now I'm and everyone else must pay for something they should be the ones to dig deep pockets have been filled enough .
sorry had my rant ill be quiet now!!!!
Actually give them their dues it isn't a stealth tax it is quite up front for this bunch of thieving b******s.
It never fails to surprise how these nonces think the best way to promote something is to tax it. If it moves tax it.
BT are going to spend good money to upgrade city and suburban areas where they will make a tidy profit. There is actually no indication that any of this money will go either to providing fibre in rural areas or even just providing newer, closer exchanges to enable the current up to 8Mbps broadband in rural areas.
This is a back hander to BT. Pure and simple.
It's all very well to say that most people won't notice £6 a year but this is always the thin end of the wedge. Remember how the basic BT service charge has ballooned over the years or the TV license fee for that matter. And it all happened with little increases.
and now there talking about expanding the funds from TV licence to cover ITV and channel four for the lack of advertising well it goes on and on need i say more
Can't we just start a bull nuts tax? the idea would be, everytime Gordon Brown opens him stupid mouth and talks rubbish we all pay 0.0001p in tax, that would have BT rolling in fiber optics till the cows came home and he'd have change to give all those robbing MP's an under the counter bung or two.
I'm surprised that by now we don't have a purchase tax or some licence, call it what you want other than VAT on mobile phones and home PC's still theres plenty to go at for Gordy, ;)
I have a dreadful suspicion that one of these days he will decide that by growing our own vegetables instead of buying them we are doing him out of the income/corporation tax he could collect from the retailer, so we shall all be invited to complete an annual Return of the value of our crops and be taxed accordingly.
well, as someone without a landline from the thieving company called BT,
'frankly my dear, I don't give a d**n'
;) ;D ;D ;D
Quote from: daileg on June 17, 2009, 18:06:16
I'm waiting for the toilet flushing tax ,dame it its out there now how long before i go to spend a penny for every time i flush in my own house after I paid the water rates
Don't give him any ideas ;D ;D ;D
Another one for Gordy to think about are 'Car boot sales' all that lubbly tax free every weekend in the back packet and you best believe it he will, ;)
Quote from: ktlawson on June 18, 2009, 08:24:08
Quote from: daileg on June 17, 2009, 18:06:16
I'm waiting for the toilet flushing tax ,dame it its out there now how long before i go to spend a penny for every time i flush in my own house after I paid the water rates
Don't give him any ideas ;D ;D ;D
It's already happening. SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) is charging £75 for the voluntary registration of all private and residential septic tanks. No doubt the bureaucrats are planning to turn it into a compulsory tax ASAP. Many suspect this will lead to fewer options for emptying and to tie septic tank owners into using exorbitant priced emptying services. They can't charge us for sewerage usage but they'll get their grubby hands on our money one way or another.
Another thing BT are not letting people know, is that before they lay fibre optic they first have to remove the copper cable, which they then take to the scrap yards and receive an unbelievable price for the copper. I think the last count when prices were good was about £1200 a ton >:(
And he`s just gone and done it again. Gordon`s other sidekick Ed Miliband announced yesterday that there will be a new tax on electricity prices to pay for four new carbon capture and storage trials.
Several commercial suppliers are competing to build trial plants, and, obviously, the one that gets it right will make enormous profits, but in the meantime gues who`s going to put the cash to pay for it all - out of our pockets.
well we all sit and read these comments about the labour government taking us to the cleaners over and over again so ill ask the big question
will we all sit on our hands the day we have the chance to vote them out or will we all carry one complaining about something without doing something about it , France has the right idea don't like something stand together and let the ELECTED government know we will not stand for it we did it with the petrol strike and again with foreign workers taking British jobs .
so how much more should we complain verbally without doing nowt about IT :o
BT first put down fibre optic cables round about twenty years ago to my knowledge so they don't need to give the public any kind of c-a- that its something new they are doing, :)
I know its a long shot but has anyone actually downloaded and read the Carter report. It is worth a skim if only to see where our 50p will go. Personally I dint care about 12 quid a year but I realise other may have different opinions. http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/digital_britain_interimreportjan09.pdf if you want.
However it worth noting a couple of points.
There is provision for community wireless network to reach communities out of range of current broadband so those who currently have limited or no access will benefit. So some public good.
The next gen tech that is planned is basically fibre to the cabinet. Currently we mainly have copper to the exchange and fibre between exchanges. Those who live to far from the exchange dip out in speed and availability. With the extention of fibre to the cabinet that problem will largely disappear as we all have cabinets within reach of the home. As a consequence most people who cant get access now will be able to benefit.
So sorry Mr Smith and others this is new tech - nothing to do with existing fibre.
Copper at £1200 a ton isn't going to pay for all this either.
Labrat - bringing broadband closer to rural areas is exactly what this is about.
The debate over who pays for this is a valid one but one way or another you pay - What we have to ask is that if this isn't paid out of tax then will it get done at all - is there a profit in it to cover the costs. The idea is that we all pay a little to provide a national service - unfortunately those providing the service are private companies which is where it sticks in craw
I have read the report (the full one not the interim report per the link) and you are wrong.
The 50p tax is for the next generation rollout (not even reaching the 2Mbps USO) and is very carefully worded to cover 90% of UK homes. NOT 90% of geographic area. The vast majority of that 90% means cities and suburbs where the greater density of housing is. The continuation of the current divide.
All people who are in the 'not-spots' or 'low-spots' will be paying the tax until at least 2017 without any realistic prospect of service improvements then or in the future. So using the reports estimates 10% of homes can expect to pay the tax and get nothing in return. How is that fair?
Worse the report assumes that 50% of homes are covered by the Virgin network plus the newer BT services reaching a further 10-15%. They therefore will not qualify for subsidy - the next gen find is for the 'final third'. The tax will therefore be levied on 60-65% of already covered next gen homes plus the 10% of homes who will never get next gen all of whom (17.5m homes approx.) will receive no benefit at all from paying this tax.
This fund is supposed to open to all companies but what does Virgin (the largest next gen supplier) have to gain when they have already exceeded even the highest government standards and will provide even better coverage before the government gets its act together. So it amounts to little more than a BT backhander who profit from dragging their feet all these years. It further does nothing to help smaller companies break the current duopoly.
Of the 2.75m homes the report says are incapable of 2Mbps, 1.9m homes are thought to be incapable because of problematic home wiring. There is nothing in the report about dealing with this simple problem.
The report also states that mobile services are unlikely even to meet the 2Mbps USO in the near future and even to achieve the best speeds available to 3G would require stopping the GSM service (99% coverage) for a lower 87% coverage. 50% of current 3G users receive only 25% or less of the possible peak data speed (about 7Mbps). Not just reinforcing the current situation but making it even worse. None of the mobile options in the report consider it likely that the last 10% of homes can be reached as a way to substitute for the lack of a decent wired service. There are no detailed plans in the report concerning other wireless technologies including satellite.
Labrat - strangely I do generally agree with much of what you say esp regarding the BT/Virgin monopoly. The convergence of cable companies over the years has done nothing to enhance choice and competition although the capital costs of infrastructue seems to have done for some of them. I recently need a fibre service and had a choice of two - dealing with BT esp was a nightmare.
I think it is better to concentrate on population numbers rather than territory and taxes are always unfair to some. I pay taxes that provide services that I dont use so I don't think it out of order that 10% dont benefit. I would rather leave it to the market but as you point out the current duopoly doesn't readily lend itself to good competition which means inflated prices so we all end up paying. It's either that or fund it out of general taxation which would still be "unfair".
The wiring issue affecting 1.9m households is, I believe, down to the householder.
You are obviously well informed on the subject - I am interested in how you think we should approach this - no trolling - genuinely interested.
cheers