British Households Set To Pay £6 Broadband Tax

Households in Britain, which have a landline, are all set to be charged £6 a year as broadband tax by the government in order to provide the majority of British homes with a broadband connection.

Interestingly, the tax which collected from British households will help the government in bringing connections of at least 2mbps to 90 percent of the country by the end of 2017 (ed: that's what they aspire for).

The controversial broadband tax was announced by Chancellor Alistair Darling in his pre-budget report which said that the government was modernising Britain’s digital infrastructure and generating thousands of jobs in the process. 

Darling, reading the report, also said that the government had provided funding for making broadband facilities in remote areas but now it wanted to take it a step further by taking broadband internet to almost 90 percent households by 2017. 

However, this innovative scheme to fund the government’s vision for broadband internet has been facing severe criticism both from those who don’t want to pay and those who believe this tax is insufficient. 

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TalkTalk, one of Britain’s most popular broadband service providers, believes that the tax was ‘unjust’ as it will discourage private companies from investing. 

BT on the other hand is of the opinion that the fund collected from the tax  - £170 million - won’t be enough as it reckons that £5 billion will be required to get broadband in every house in England.