Posted: 14th Jan, 2010 By: MarkJ

The
Policy Exchange, which describes itself as an independent non-partisan centre-right educational charity, has proposed that the UK government drop its plans for a 50p +vat per month tax on all fixed phone lines. Instead it suggests funding both the rollout of next generation broadband and the pledge to make a minimum speed of 2Mbps available for everybody by using general taxation.
25. Drop the Telecom Tax
The need for £3.5 billion to build out high speed internet infrastructure to the whole UK is not yet proven but if the need does materialise it is likely to be a major benefit to all parts of the UK economy, including the public sector. In this case it should be funded out of general taxation, not a telecom tax.
26. Do not use the licence fee to fund universal broadband
Universal 2Mbits/sec access has broader benefits to society than simply the consumption of audio visual material. The licence fee forms a vital source of funding for the content creation sector which faces its own significant challenges in the Web 2.0 age and which is an almost £1 billion a year export sector. The last 10 years has seen more and more licence fee monies diverted to delivery and distribution rather than content.
The licence fee should remain a source of funding primarily for content and services not delivery. General taxation monies should, therefore, be used to achieve universal access to 2Mbits/sec broadband. Such funds would go to the Public Access Division (PAD) not the BBC.
27. Create community broadband hubs to provide very high speed broadband to remote areas in the medium term, use network co-operation to provide universal roll out in the long term
The promotion of high speed internet access outside major conurbations should, in the first instance, be through the use of public libraries, community centres, post offices and other public buildings as high speed access hubs. This would replace the promotion or funding of direct connectivity to up to 8 million homes as suggested by Digital Britain. The cost of this initiative would be likely to be less than £300m rather than the £3.5 billion associated with going from 60 to 90% 50Mbit/sec household accessibility.
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In the longer term the main network providers (BT and Virgin Media) might be encouraged to roll out high speed broadband to the whole of the UK by allowing the sharing of current infrastructure in the major conurbations (with significant cost savings) in return for an obligation to roll out new infrastructure to the rest of the UK.
The Policy Exchange has also recommended that the government adopt a fairer approach to tackling illegal file sharing among broadband ISP customers. Instead of the “
three strikes and out” approach it would like to see greater international effort to crack down on the providers of pirate services (e.g. the Pirate Bay case) and more compelling legitimate ways of accessing legal content.
The report said:
"Such an authoritarian approach to piracy is not only vulnerable to mistakes (such as pirates using innocent third parties’ PC access to carry out illegitimate file sharing) but provides a very unbalanced approach to the problem."
The exchange also touched on the aspect of Internet privacy (i.e. Phorm ), citing a need to develop European and WTO level rules that govern the circumstances surrounding when ISPs can allow targeted advertising networks access to their customers. "
The UK needs a consistent and transparent policy in this area which gives advertisers greater effectiveness but protects individual privacy," it said.