50p a month on fixed lines to pay foe broadband for all

Jakg

SailorSam wrote: »

How many of us really need faster speeds if we only use the Internet for social purposes.
I understand to a business it may be important.

Because thats not what its for - Market Forces will (hopefully) eventually remove all copper wires for fibre - but only in densely populated areas.

Where my GF lives, for example, BT have basically said theres not enough people there to make money from, so her whole village doesn't get broadband. If they want it they can pay £25k to OpenReach.

The 50ppm is to make sure that *everywhere* can get a minimum of 2mbit by ADSL - which is good for the countries economy as a whole.

It may seem galling, but £6 a year isn't going to break the bank. The idea that a £6 a year tax is going to drive you to change from ADSL to 3G broadband (even though you'll still pay it as its on the line rental not the actual broadband charge...) is again rediculous, as you didn't make such a statement about alcohol, fuel or tobacco duty going up - any of those easily would of costed you more than £6pa and the money for that was squandered away.




The UK's telecommunication infrastructure is, quite frankly, !!!!. 90% of European countries (even poorer nations such as Slovakia and Estonia) have much MUCH better links than us, and delivering 21st century connections down 100 year old copper wires isn't practical anymore - but no-one is willing to pay for a fibre roll out so what are you going to do...

Again the point is that this money goes to guaranteeing a basic connection speed for all rather than anything ridiculous - where my GF lives a mile up the road she could get it and is more than happy to pay for it - but she cant! She used to have dialup and now has a 3G dongle that works intermittently at about 150kbit max.

SailorSam

[QUOTE=Jakg;30

The 50ppm is to make sure that *everywhere* can get a minimum of 2mbit by ADSL - which is good for the countries economy as a whole.
[/QUOTE]

It's a bit like the post office and Royal Mail isn't it, i don't know how much a first class stamp is now but it's not fair that someone living in Cornwall or the Highlands of Scotland pay a lot more than those in the cities.
Maybe you're right we should all pay our 50p so you can talk to your girlfriend.

The_White_Horse

its a disgrace, if you can't afford broadband, then you can't have it.

why not have an additional 500 on a new car so the non working scum can get a free car as well.

A fairer future for all, paid for by robbing the workers so that the scum and workshy can have the same as them without lifting a finger.

FU*K OFF LABOUR

PasturesNew

There is a landline here, but no broadband. There will never be broadband here, so why should people who don't even have the Internet, people who have never been on the Internet, pay?

When I move I don't plan to get a landline if I can avoid it, I have a 15GB/month USB stick ... and so long as I can get a signal on that I'll see how it goes.

Snooze

Jakg wrote: »

Because thats not what its for - Market Forces will (hopefully) eventually remove all copper wires for fibre - but only in densely populated areas.

Where my GF lives, for example, BT have basically said theres not enough people there to make money from, so her whole village doesn't get broadband. If they want it they can pay £25k to OpenReach.

The 50ppm is to make sure that *everywhere* can get a minimum of 2mbit by ADSL - which is good for the countries economy as a whole.

It may seem galling, but £6 a year isn't going to break the bank. The idea that a £6 a year tax is going to drive you to change from ADSL to 3G broadband (even though you'll still pay it as its on the line rental not the actual broadband charge...) is again rediculous, as you didn't make such a statement about alcohol, fuel or tobacco duty going up - any of those easily would of costed you more than £6pa and the money for that was squandered away.




The UK's telecommunication infrastructure is, quite frankly, !!!!. 90% of European countries (even poorer nations such as Slovakia and Estonia) have much MUCH better links than us, and delivering 21st century connections down 100 year old copper wires isn't practical anymore - but no-one is willing to pay for a fibre roll out so what are you going to do...

Again the point is that this money goes to guaranteeing a basic connection speed for all rather than anything ridiculous - where my GF lives a mile up the road she could get it and is more than happy to pay for it - but she cant! She used to have dialup and now has a 3G dongle that works intermittently at about 150kbit max.

:rotfl: How naive are you?! Anyone that believes this tax will be going on rolling out 2 meg for everyone in the UK is living in cloud cuckoo land. My business is supplying leased lines so I have a pretty good knowledge of the complexities involved. Let's just say that the total of this yearly tax from everyone probably wouldn't even pay for the consultations on how they plan to do it - it's a pathetic amount of money. They'd need to be taxing everyone at least a tenner per month to get even close to the total costs involved - it'll cost billions to do.

Fibre-optic cable is very expensive and hence why it's only used in densely populated areas. You start running out 20,30,40 miles of fibre to villages in the middle of nowhere that have a population of maybe a couple of hundred folks and you are quickly up into several hundred grandsworth of cabling and that's before you've even starting digging holes to put it in or installing local exchanges. Even once you've got it installed you've then got the problem of how many folks you can get signed up. Even if you manage to get 100 folks signed up just on the 2 meg deal you're only looking at around £12k per year income (based on a 2 meg deal being around a tenner a month) and that's before all your maintenance and staff costs, so effectively you're making nothing.

The only way it'd be worth their while is if they could get everyone to take the TV and phone package with it. This is where they all make their money as the TV and phone costs them virtually nothing to provide and they make big profits from it, unlike the internet where they struggle to break even.

Also don't forget that this is BT we're talking about here who work at the pace of a snail and generally make a mess of everything. I bet that your g/fs village will still not have broadband in 10 years time and quite possibly not even 20 years time either.

Snakeeyes21

PasturesNew wrote: »

There is a landline here, but no broadband. There will never be broadband here, so why should people who don't even have the Internet, people who have never been on the Internet, pay?

When I move I don't plan to get a landline if I can avoid it, I have a 15GB/month USB stick ... and so long as I can get a signal on that I'll see how it goes.

Ive already done it, I solely rely on my dongle now (15gb from 3) even have voip set upon it, tis great, none of this extra tax malarkey for me

But no doubt the government will soon find another way to scr*w us dongle users out of extra cash.

Mobile broadband is coming of age, speeds are getting faster (cant wait for telifonica to upgrade to LTE) inclusive allowance are increasing, and prices are coming down inline with standard broadband.

mobile broadband 4G is the future.

I for one will be welcoming the mobile broadband revolution with open arms :j

avantra

Question:

Does anyone knows how many people in the UK can't get decent broadband?

Decent = more than 128 k/s

Collecting so much ££ during the deepest recession ever must be a highly noble cause ie. Improving the life of the poor souls with less than manageable 128k.

Sorry to show my cynicism but I suppose if they collected £1 per month for the noble cause of laying proper long lasting roads I would be happier.:(

lemontart

ah well planning on getting rid of land line soon as rarely use it and it is an expense that I feel is I cannot afford anymore and will have stand alone bb with virgin until daughter eventually moves out and takes her ps3 with her so I can rely on dongle for my lowly needs

System

To be honest I've got more to worry about than £6 a year.

Graham_Devon

The problem with this tax, is that it states it will enable everyone to recieve 2mb broadband.

It won't. It may enable people to recieve UP TO 2mb broadband. "Up to" is the key, and the getout clause for everyone it seems.

Recently I (and all of us living here) have been having major major problems with broadband where I am, so much so it's reached the local news. There are simply too many people trying to use the system, so much so that it's not uncommon to see "broadband" at it's fastest at 0.27mbps.

There are simply tonnnes of posts on the O2 broadband forums about the same things.

Put simply, too many people using too little infrastructure. BT are simply not doing what they should. This tax will not help that, and as already said, it will soon rise.

Already it has come out that the tax will not help the people it should help, as all BT's efforts go towards densly populated, high revenue areas.