It's just another revenue raiser, almost certain to rise to ridiculous levels in the years to come...

I think that we agreed on either the Dennis forums or here that the levy was not enough to actually get a decent result. They clearly never thought this through. This is Mandy's fault.

by imposing a tax, via a private company, to be used for 'so called' improvements by that very same company can and will result in

the energy industry will be able to impose a tax for their improvements
the water companies will be able to levy a tax for the same reasons
any other private company could and would jump on the bandwagon

who needs the Govt to raise taxes …

BT will provide the services where it can make a profit. Where it can't it won't provide.

If you want it to be different then you need to put a different payment model in place.

Maybe the solution is to strip BT of the local loop and then set the line rental at a level that will cover everyone. That seems fairer.

Is that not exactly what they've done? The local loop now belongs to Openreach, a separate business which provides wholesale access to the local loop at the same price for every household in the country. I'm not exactly sure, but it's around £5 a month.

http://www.openreach.co.uk/

The problem is, the existing local loop is incapable of providing good broadband speeds in many cases. Hardly surprising since it was laid 30 odd years before broadband was even conceived. These old cables were laid all over the country by the GPO half a century ago, and it was most certainly not done with profit as the motive.

To lay a fast internet line to a single remote house might easily cost in excess of £250,000. For the same cost, you could provide fast internet to several thousand homes in a densely populated housing area. There is an argument that says, if you choose to live in the middle of nowhere then you choose the consequences. No mains gas, no mains drainage, no public transport, no McDonald's and no cable. If you need cable, you need to live in a town.

Where investment is needed urgently and would quickly reap benefits is in the backbones rather than the local loop. Many people actually have decent sync speeds, but barely usable real life performance because of peak time contention. Over the last year, we've seen home usage shoot up mainly through video. The result is unhappy customers complaining of poor bandwidth.

As detailed on the website, OR are rolling out FttC and FttH. It will take a very long time though, and I expect to be retired before it reaches my sleepy little village. The only way to accelerate the entire process is to fund it through taxation. Whether or not you think it's worth it rather depends on whether you think communications are important for the future of British communities. Personally, I would never now buy a house that didn't have fast internet. Such a house would be a worthless to me. Certainly not somewhere I could consider working from or raising a family in.

I am not fixated on fibre to every home. If the local loop operator basically ran fibre to the cabinet everywhere first. That would cover the vast majority of the population quickly. Then with remote areas come up with other solutions, such as wi-max or satellite or even 3G.

If Openreach have to increase the minimum month fee to cover that basic investment then fine. For the final remote areas the government should chip in and assist.

If you look at the website, they are rolling out FttC to dozens of areas this year. FttH is going in new builds.

There are already government grants available for satellite in certain areas. 3G and WiMax are not much use in remote areas because the coverage is worse than ADSL.

As you've probably seen on your phone bill, line rental went up well above inflation recently.

There is a limit to what people will pay, and thus a limit on the speed of progress without government assistance. I am envious of countries where the government has invested heavily in their broadband infrastructure, because they have already enjoyed performance for several years that we won't be seeing in my lifetime. At the current rate, it could take 20 years to see "upto 40Mb" as the norm here while other countries are talking about 1000Mb.

Right now, I just wish I was getting the 20Meg my copper is capable of. I'm throttled to under 1Meg because of backbone contention, which has nothing to do with the last mile.

If that were dealt with then many more people would actually see an improvement in their service.

Makes sense.

It's not about fair, it's about business.

Why should I be forced to subsidise the cost of fibre into the sticks??

If people want fibre they should move into the city.

The cynic in me thinks that MPs are saying this is unfair because they can't exempt themselves from it or put it on expenses.
It was always a ridiculous idea that should not have got further than being laughed at.

True but since it is such an important business why should it be private?


Yes but the countryside also have subsidised the cities in the past. If you include the needs of the rural areas then they help in creating economies of scale, without the rural needs the costs for cities will increase.


Yes but then if you want a countryside then you need to consider that as well.

That's a little blinkered don't you think?