A Levy For Faster Broadband

The Digital Britain report recommends a levy on every landline to finance the infrastructure for faster broadband.

Yesterday saw the publication of the Digital Britain report, and one of its more interesting ideas was a way to finance an upgrade of the infrastructure to give everyone faster broadband – a tax.

In this case it will be a small month levy – around 50p, or 75 cents – on everyone with a landline phone.

Report author Lord Carter said:

"It is a contribution which we are asking people to make – it’s six pounds a year – offset, as we make very clear in the report, by the likely continued reduction in headline prices because of the competitive market we have in this country."

Among the other issues covered in the report are plans to curb persistent file-sharing, a stronger system of content classification for video games, universal broadband access by 2012, a liberalization of the 3G spectrum, and all radio to be digital by 2015.