£6 a year broadband tax heading to UK households

A £6 a year tax will be added to your landline telephone bill, Chancellor Alastair Darling has revealed today. A further 50p per month will be added to the bill for each extra phone line installed in residents’ houses.

Following up on the plans made in the Digital Britain report, the poll tax will be used to extend the current network range to remote areas of the UK, and is expected to raise £175 million each year.

“We now want to go further, so we can provide the next generation of super-fast broadband to 90% of the population by the end of 2017,” explained Darling. “This will be funded through a duty of 50 pence a month on landlines which will be included in the finance bill.”

Firms willing to bring super-fast broadband to remote areas will be granted access to the £175 million funds, though any network created must be made available to every ISP.

Of course we’re keen to see the whole of the UK have access to a super-fast broadband connection, but the extra expense to homes which have multiple phone lines (estimated at around 1.7 million households) seems a little unfair. Adding VAT on top of the new tax also seems like a cheap tactic.

Via: Tech Radar