Posted: 16th Jul, 2010 By: MarkJ

Broadband ISP and phone operator TalkTalk UK has warned that a proposed two year pay freeze for public sector workers could have the potential to seriously affect broadband uptake, with tens of thousands of staff having less disposable income to spend on internet access.
TalkTalk's Commercial Director, Tristian Clarke, said:
"TalkTalk knows how small changes in price or disposable income can affect broadband uptake. There are millions of people who are on the margins of the broadband revolution. Some are currently online, some are not, but in both cases a few pounds per month in disposable income can make the difference between having broadband access at home and not.
With the Joseph Rowntree Foundation last week declaring that home internet access is a social necessity is there a risk that our nurses, fireman, teaching assistants and other public sector workers could be excluded from the very society they help to run?
Everyone acknowledges the need to tackle the national debt but we are concerned that public sector workers may be disproportionately excluded from internet access at the very time that the Government is committed to extending it.
About 1.7 million public sector workers earn less than £21,000 a year. With inflation running at 3.4 per cent, lower paid public workers could see their disposable income reduce despite the Chancellor’s efforts to cushion the blow."
TalkTalk claims that its own price sensitivity models suggest that "
tens of thousands of low paid public sector workers may either give up their home broadband or abandon plans to go online" over the next couple of years. Frustratingly it has chosen not reveal the actual data.
We can't speak for everybody but we do agree that broadband is a "
social necessity" for most modern people, though other surveys have shown that broadband is one of the services that adults would least like to lose, especially during times of economic hardship. We would much rather give up trips to the cinema or local pub than our internet access, but that's just us.