Digital Britain = Tax
So…Â the Digital Britain report is here and with it comes a new tax. Is that really a massive surprise? To me, no. To others, perhaps. Another shining example of this Government’s thinking. “Hey it’s *only* 50p!” I hear you cry.
Yes, it’s 50p to hand over to companies like BT and Virgin so that they can lay cables or put the infrastructure in place to provide circa 2Mbit connections to mainly rural areas with high populations of elderly people who have absolutely no interest in broadband Britain. And need I point out that the reason BT and Virgin have avoided laying cables to these areas is because it isn’t commercially viable to do so. Why should the tax paying population of a country hand money to telecoms providers to expand their network in to areas that weren’t commercially viable before, only for them to be able to reap the rewards (profit) from the sale of products on infrastructure which WE have paid for?!
Granted, those subscriptions may not number in the thousands like they would in cities but if there’s no risk/cost implications for BT and Virgin to lay their cables then sure, they’ll lay the cables and start charging customers for the privilege of having broadband in remote areas.
I’m all for a digital Britain but seriously, if you want fast Internet access, don’t choose to live in the middle of nowhere and expect the rest of the country to pay for your broadband connection. Nobody subsidised mine when I was paying £35 a month for 512k back in 2000.
-Lewis
Cities always subsidize outlying regions. For example, without tax from cities, there wouldn’t be highways in the country. One could argue that broadband connections are the highways of the day.
Let’s be honest, the only reason there are highways (motorways in the UK) in the country is to connect cities together. It’s a fringe benefit that the villages gain access to a motorway as a result of the road being built. The problem here is that these people asking for broadband in the country aren’t close enough to a “motorway” that has been built already.
While we’re using the motorway analogy, it’s like the Government asking the tax paying public to pay for a road building company to build a motorway to connect a tiny village community directly to the motorway network, stick a toll booth on it and pocket the profits.
The companies that provide these services aren’t willing to build the road from their own pockets and it’s unfair to ask the tax payer to stump up the cash only for the companies who weren’t willing to delve in to their own pockets anyway to reap the rewards. BT and Virgin know this and that’s why it hasn’t been done for rural broadband and probably why they’re keeping quiet on the subject too. Obviously they want the tax payer to pay for the infrastructure to be put in if they’re going to reap the rewards!
-Lewis