The Valuation Office Agency (VOA), which compiles and maintains business rating and council tax valuation lists for England and Wales, is reportedly getting ready to impose business rates (property tax) upon wireless networks (e.g. wi-fi masts, not end-user networks). The move has raised concern because many community wireless broadband ( Wi-Fi , WiMAX ) ISPs operate off already thin margins and usually inhabit niche markets (remote and rural areas).

Those familiar with the industry will already know just how damaging the governments current tax on fibre optic networks has been, making it far more costly than it should be to deploy next generation broadband around the UK. To impose a new tax upon wireless networks could make matters worse and threaten the governments own goals of digital inclusion (Digital Britain).

The proposed move, which was first spotted by Fibrevolution, has caused anger and confusion among wireless ISPs who fear that such a tax could become a major hindrance and might even cause some operations to close. The change could even be retroactively applied back to 1st April 2005. However the VOA informs us that such reports are "wrong" because the tax itself is nothing new.


FREEDOM4, a well establish wireless ISP that makes use of the latest WiMAX and Wi-Fi technology, also appears to confirm the VOA's stance that rating of wireless installations is technically nothing new. However they remain equally scalding of the fact that such rates exist at all.


According to the director of Fibrestream Ltd., Guy Jarvis, the issue is to some degree a matter of semantics. Jarvis informed us that what the VOA says about the Wireless Window Tax not being new is correct, but only in the sense that "it is not something that has been specifically introduced to target WiFi networks or similar."


Unfortunately many governments have historically made the incorrect assumption that increasing or imposing new taxes will directly result in extra revenue, yet this is often not the case. In some situations a tax can be so prohibitive to building new infrastructure that what you get back may be far less because many opportunities will go unexploited.

UK Wireless networks are fast becoming crucial for the delivery of broadband services to remote and rural locations via Wi-Fi , WiMAX and Mobile Broadband . Any tax upon these services, especially those affecting the smallest of players, should perhaps be seriously reconsidered.