new internet tax

this is ******* ridiculous, BT should be footing bills with the money they're getting from contracts

and now Ive just read someone at the BBC wants us to pay for iplayer, wtf am i paying you a license fee for! argh.
 
uvarvu said:
If you refuse to pay £6 a year so that everyone can have the benefit of a broadband connection with a resonable speed then you're a miserly git, enough said.
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This £6 a year across all the households raises a FRACTION of the amount spent on Iraq, Afghanistan or the benefits system. Why not take the money from those instead of taxing us more?
 
Cruiser said:
and now Ive just read someone at the BBC wants us to pay for iplayer, wtf am i paying you a license fee for! argh.
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You didn't read very well then did you? It was the chief executive of a production company speaking at a BBC event.

The BBC has no plans to introduce charges.
 
rypt said:
This £6 a year across all the households raises a FRACTION of the amount spent on Iraq, Afghanistan or the benefits system. Why not take the money from those instead of taxing us more?
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Give it time...

"Government today announced that on September 5th the internet tax will rise 5p to £2.56 a month with a further rise in April."

Can you hear the furious hand rubbing?
 
I feel I should clarify and add that I'm proud of being "British" - of the "Britain" represented by the Bond films, rather than the Britain of the local council estate full of chavs going "innit bruv" or "brud" or whatever phrases they use now-a-days.
Oh, and I also hate all our politicians now :(

If this mess is sorted out I'd be back in a heart beat / not leave ... but it is unlikely to happen in my life time (if ever).
So I'd rather live in a foreign EU country that does not speak English than live in the UK :(




Only added this before someone flamed me for hating Britain.
 
Von Smallhausen said:
Any suggestions for an aptly named activist group ?

Masses
In resisting
Next
Generation.
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Support
Large
Angry
Mobbed
Masses
In resisting
Next
Generation

Internet
Telecommunications

Is that what you were going for? ;)

If the money is actually going towards a proper upgrade of the infrastructure then I can't say an extra £0.50 per line is going to bother me much, as an idea I'm not overly fond of it because the money for infrastructure upgrades should have been budgeted for by any business worthy of the name. Practically speaking however for the sake of £6 a year I don't care much either way.
 
Doesn't go far enough tbh, 10million a year isn't enough to do anything useful. More trouble than it's worth.

They need to bite the bullet and put in a proper FTTH infrastructure, which iirc was estimated to cost in the region of £20 Billion, some quick calcs gives me a figure of around £6 / month per household would pay it off over the next 15 years.
 
Zarf said:
They need to bite the bullet and put in a proper FTTH infrastructure, which iirc was estimated to cost in the region of £20 Billion, some quick calcs gives me a figure of around £6 / month per household would pay it off over the next 15 years.
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So why not take that money from the waste that is the bank bailout, Iraq, Afghanistan, aid sent to India & China, money given to French farmers and so on.
 
not sure if this has been mentioned already...

why do home users need a next gen broadband connection?

how about giving every home in the UK the ability to have a connection of at least 2mb instead of making already fast connections even faster
 
jaxon said:
not sure if this has been mentioned already...

why do home users need a next gen broadband connection?

how about giving every home in the UK the ability to have a connection of at least 2mb instead of making already fast connections even faster
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So why not a new tax to get everyone a gas connection rather than relying on their own oil or gas tanks?



Choose to live in the middle of nowhere and you have to accept certain things arn't going to be available or are going to cost a lot more.
 
Tefal said:
So why not a new tax to get everyone a gas connection rather than relying on their own oil or gas tanks?



Choose to live in the middle of nowhere and you have to accept certain things arn't going to be available or are going to cost a lot more.
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i see what you mean about uber remote places but there are still lots of places which are far from remote and still get a v poor connection.

my mam and dad live 2 minutes from the town center (which is on 8mb) and they are stuck on 0.5mb connection, i live 5 miles away from them and 2 mins from my local town center (which is a lot smaller) and im on 8mb connection

i don't see what's wrong with an 8mb connection anyway
 
rsatd said:
But I still do not see why the rest of us should pay for it? You choose to live where you choose to live.
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I couldn't agree more.

Some how people who live in the sticks generally believe they should be able to enjoy all the benefits of living in a nice quite area but accept none of the negatives.

I was speaking to someone the other day who honestly thought that people who live out of town should have their petrol subsidised because a car is an essential item which is required for work.

My internet works fine. I don’t see why other people’s internet speed is any concern of mine. If it's that important, they'll have to move, pay more or quit complaining about other people moving to the area who could potentially improve the chances of them getting a decent service.
EVH said:
I don't want others to pay for it, after all if EVERYONE paid then it's fair isn't it.. perhaps the tax is wrong (god knows they waste enough money on pointless schemes etc) but my beef is that people are simply saying "I live in an urban area.. screw everyone else" when really, shouldn't everyone get the same level of service if they pay the same price? I see it as selfish.
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Yes it's selfish, but can you really justify forcing people to pay for someone else’s broadband. If the tax was to benefit everyone equally it would be pointless. The idea is to make people who live in areas when broadband is cheap and profitable pay for connections where it's expensive and not economically viable. People who live in urban areas would see no benifit from this tax.
 
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jaxon said:
not sure if this has been mentioned already...

why do home users need a next gen broadband connection?

how about giving every home in the UK the ability to have a connection of at least 2mb instead of making already fast connections even faster
Click to expand...

If everyone had FTTP it could really kickstart a lot of new tech, you could do a lot more with regards to online storage because we'd all finally have proper upload links. Things like remote computing or that gaming service that was getting a lot of press a few months back would actually be really viable thanks to low latencies and enough bandwidth that they can use high quality video codecs.

If the infrastructure is there, people will find new ways to use it, and UK businesses would have a real shot at pioneering these new ways.

The way I see it is it's inevitable that we'll move over to Fiber, the only question is when and the sooner we do it the better. Once countries like Aus and Japan have completed their Fiber networks and got the jump on us developing and using all the cool stuff we're going to be spending quite a few years kicking ourselves for not getting started earlier whilst we play catch up to the rest of the world.
 
Two minds about this.

1. If it makes a difference and is actually going to go towards next-gen BB and not some fat cat's oversized bonus then i'm all for it.

2. Sadly i'm 98% sure it won't, and it'll just be increased sneakily every few months.
 
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