UK to impose £6 tax per landline phone to fund super-fast broadband

The British government is planning to introduce a tax of £6 a year on every household with a landline phone to fund the roll-out of high-speed broadband across the country.

As per the plan outlined in the 'Digital Britain White Paper', a cross country expansion of broadband fibre optic service will incur huge expenses, which have to be met by all land phone users.

Asked if people would be willing to pay the new levy, Lord Carter of Barnes, the communications minister, said: ''How will the public react? Well, we'll find out.''

The new tax would generate an estimated £150 million a year and is aimed as a stimulus to help British Telecom or Virgin Media pay for the infrastructure. But with the amount for extending fibre optic into the countryside expected to run into many billions, it is unclear if it will be enough to ensure the project's success.

Currently, only a limited number of households can access super-fast broadband, but BT and Virgin Media are planning to connect about 12.5 million homes around the country by 2012.

The plan envisages all homes to have broadband of at least 2 megabits by 2012, with £200 million from the BBC licence fee to be used to fund extension to rural areas.

Ben Bradshaw, culture secretary, told Parliament that the plan in Lord Carter's Digital Britain Report to unfold 2Mbps broadband by 2012, and increase that to 50Mbps by 2017, will propel Britain into the new digital age.

Another key point in the White Paper include ''Fourth generation'' fast mobile internet services to be introduced subject to mobile phone companies agreeing to clear the relevant portions of radio spectrum.

The report also speaks about digital radio becoming the sole national standard with FM and AM radio stations to be switched off by the end of 2015, internet providers to introduce a string of technical measures to stop persistent illegal downloaders, and support given to a prospective merger between Channel 4 and the BBC's commercial arm, with the aim of safeguarding Channel 4's future.

However, the opposition was up in arms against the white paper.

Jeremy Hunt, shadow culture secretary, said the white paper was a colossal disappointment and full of inconsistencies.

As per an Ofcom study, only 1.5 million Britons do not have access to 2Mbs broadband, and most of them live in inaccessible places.

Super-fast broadband, running at speeds of over 10 megabits a second, allows people to watch multiple channels of high definition television and download films in minutes.