£6 a year broadband tax: now it's official

14. I've got to say, I've never had a problem with AOL. In the early 90s, when you paid your isp AND the telephone company for the privilege of being online, I had to format my hard drive to get rid of their woeful browser. Swore I would never go back. But they sweetened the deal a couple of years back with a free (hmm) PS3. Dropouts are a rarity, no noticeable slow down (speeds are close to the 8 they they advertise), no email telling me I'm downloading too much. And I download a lot of cr@p. The only thing slow about them, is their still, woeful browser. But hey, you don't have to use it.

Back on topic. I don't mind paying a paltry 6 pounds a year to speed up our Victorian infrastructure. The whole country, public and, importantly, British businesses, which keep this country afloat, benefit in the end. Look at it this way, we're paying a lot more for the Olympics, and, fingers crossed, the 2018 World Cup. How many of you are competing in those? And lets face it, not everyone's interested in either of them.

13. I admit lovlid, i was a little bit of a fool.

However, I think a person should be able to download at the speed you pay monthly for anyway regardless of fair usage/network traffic, if they can't handle it then the ISPs better start upgrading their hardware to handle it.

To pay for a certain broadband speed and to be then for it to be reduced because of network traffic is an annoyance and unfair.

Why don't the ISP's advertise their packages at the throttled speeds instead.

Fair usage = ISPs can't handle the extra traffic and can;t be bothered to upgrade their hardware to handle it.

There are reports that have found BT reducing its download speed to 750Kps or less at peak times, just the time when you fancy watchin iplayer or something. Real handy :(

12. Shadow culture sec. jeremy hunt (rhyming slang jokes welcome) states that public funds will be considered when the market has taken broadband as far as it can.

@ tech89.

"High speed broadband - only when your not using it at peak times other wise it gets throttled too much to the point where it's useless for online video, music, or downloading.

I would advise against BT Broadband as they throttle your connection alot and often."

You sir, are a fool. Read part three of this

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/legal/oncable/acceptableuse.html

then read this

http://www.virgin.net/allyours/faqs/trafficManagementFAQ.html

Virgin WILL throttle your bandwidth, and in the words of that famous tory, Ricky Tomlinson, unlimited my @rse.

11. "The Conservatives have promised to scrap it, so vote for them"

ah go on then,lets sell our souls to to the devil for the sake of 6,six,SIX,pounds a year.frikkin idiot.

10. The Conservatives have promised to scrap it, so vote for them.

High speed broadband - only when your not using it at peak times other wise it gets throttled too much to the point where it's useless for online video, music, or downloading.

I would advise against BT Broadband as they throttle your connection alot and often.

Virgin Media are much better with providing consistent speeds and with more packages that offer cap free download usage.

9. Why do we have to pay again for the sub standard infrastructure BT and other phone companies have installed not to mention the high phone line charges and broadband charges. What's the point? you can’t use the (Insert Word) service with fair usage and download capping. Its another TAX to bend over the common working bloke again. Don’t we pay enough as it is.

8. madjedi that's what company profits and reinvesting them into development is for! Why should my nan pay for a new internet infrastructure network when she doesn't even have or really understand a computer? On principle it makes no sense to have a scatter gun approach to taxation (why couldn't it be on ISP accounts rather than fixed telephone lines?), in practice temporary specific taxes don't have a good history in this country. Has ANY temporary tax been recinded? E.g. income tax now about 400 years after "temporary" introduction, and for funding something has any tax come in and gone towards specific funding as intended or has it all just ended up in the general treasury pot?

7. mbrett do you mean 0.5Mb or 0.5MB a half Mega Byte line is 4 mega bits so even if you have a 8 Mb line you are only getting 1MB and that's if its going full belt. when your downloading if your downloading 1000Kb you are downloading 1 meg a second that's an 8Mb line working at full capacity.

6. Ok, if we put aside how the next gen of BB in Britain it paid for, we surly all agree that it needs paying for somehow. If we are all going to be taxed for it then we should all benifit from it, so the aim should be 100% coverage by 2017 not 90%.

5. Time to get rid of your fixed line, if people in less populated areas want next-gen BB why should we pay for it? You make the decision to live in the countryside away from the city there are pros and cons with that this is one of the cons!

Like with every other tax this will never go away.

4. One of the worst things about this is that it's intended to improve internet connections yet people who don't even have internet connections are having to pay the tax for it.

3. This sound interesting. So what we are saying is Alistair Darling wants me to pay tax when my hardware infrastucture, only installed 4-5 years ago by BT is only rated at 0.5MB when I am less than 3km from the exchange, by road. This is rediculous. the first stage should be to make BT stop taking the [insert word here] with the quality of their materials used. At least make them take responsibility as they will not even discuss this issue unless you have your Broadband with BT. To live in a 4-5 year old house in a City and only have 0.5MB broadband rating on your line when you are less than 3km, by road, from the exchange is rediculous.

2. My broadband is through Virgin cable and I don't have a phone line, does that mean i don't pay the tax?

1. So we get taxed to pay for the upgrade to the neglected network infrastructure and then BT and co will charge us more for our line rental. Another example of rip-off Britain!