The UK Governments Chancellor of the Exchequer and Labour MP for Edinburgh South West, Alistair Darling, has unsurprisingly confirmed plans to help fund the rollout of next generation fibre optic based broadband services by putting a new 50p +vat per month tax on all fixed phone lines in the country.

The controversial tax, which is backed by the Liberal Democracts, would rake in about £175m per year, though the opposition Conservative party has claimed that the extra cost could force over 200,000 low-income households off the Internet. We posted a simplified breakdown of what all of the main political parties have proposed earlier this week (here).

Interestingly Alistair Darling merely referred to Next Generation Access (NGA) related services as being "fast broadband". Sadly he gave no further details and failed to clarify what that actually means. The devil remains in the details.