EXTENDED: You've got another week to add your travel & holiday deals questions for expert MSE Oli as part of the latest Ask An Expert event.
MSE News: Row erupts over rushed-through broadband tax plans
Former_MSE_Guy
Former MSE 1.7K Posts
This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:
"Government plans to legislate on its controversial broadband tax before the next general election have sparked angry criticism ..."
"Government plans to legislate on its controversial broadband tax before the next general election have sparked angry criticism ..."
Read the full story:
Row erupts over rushed-through broadband tax plans
Row erupts over rushed-through broadband tax plans
0
This discussion has been closed.
Latest MSE News and Guides
Replies
Where I live (in Lincolnshire) we BARELY get a service that you can call broadband, it is so slow and the infrastructure is so poor. Why do I have to pay more money for that kind of service? I'm already paying the same price for my broadband as someone who gets MUCH faster service.
What a con! I knew that these wildly extravagant plans for this amazing broadband service that the whole of the UK was going to get would turn into some money making scheme....
Makes me really angry. There are many places in the developing world that have better connection to the internet than many of us in the UK do. What an embarrassment
You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
BT is a private company, they should upgrade their network using private finance, so that the profits then go back to the private sector.
If BT, unable to fund its own work, requires an external investor (the taxpayer) to finance investment, it is only right that the investor gets a share of the profit.
I've not yet seen an episode of Dragons' Den where someone is offered investment in exchange for 0% equity. This is effectively what is happening with the broadband 'tax'.
For some time, the networks have supplied broadband a lot cheaper to places where there is more competition after local loop unbundling.
Can it really be true for example to suggest that it is £5 to £8 a month cheaper at the moment to provide broadband to somewhere a mile and a half away from me, merely because the cables head in a different direction to a different exchange? Where does the infrastructure meet on the other side of the exchanges?
No, besides BT there is only one other provider at my exchange, so rivals deem that the market isn't competitive. If there were two more, suddenly loads of companies would be willing to offer me even resold BT Wholesale for £5 or £6 less. But surely the presence or lack of those others scarcely alters BT Wholesale's costs at all, only the costs of the other firms installing their gear.
In other words, I think the market is wilfully distorted already, without the phone companies being handed the chance to blackmail the government.
If the government really wants to socialise things a bit, it should compel the companies to charge more even prices across the whole country, and a bit more not less for the better products, and use that to sponsor the rollout costs in the places they've avoided so far.
Charging people 50p more, when they have rubbish or no broadband at all yet, and they know people elsewhere with fast products are paying £5 or £10 less, is going to seem unfair.
NOV 2021 O/S AMOUNT £1,694.41 OUR DEBT REDUCED BY £104,759.59 by std regular, over-payments & off-setting.
BofE +0.19% Tracker Repayment Offset Mortgage Discounted Sept 07-10 then increased to BofE +0.62% until 2027