"It is a contribution which we are asking people to make - it's six pounds a year - offset, as we make very clear in the report, by the likely continued reduction in headline prices because of the competitive market we have in this country," said report author Lord Carter.
Yeah? Well you've asked, and I say no. I'm not contributing anything. I get 20Mb broadband and while I feel for others who have to suffer poorer performance as a result of the limitations of the technology, I don't see why I should have to fork out yet more money. People can say "oh it's only 50p", but you can be guaranteed that the cost of both my o2 and BT packages will rise, additionally to this tax, at least once in the next five years and I simply don't see why people should have to pay more for other people to have faster internet.
I'm lucky, I live opposite my telephone exchange so I actually get over 20Mb with o2 but if I didn't and I wanted faster internet, then I'd have to go with Virgin. It's not like the option isn't already there for faster internet for people whose ADSL options are poor. Sure, Virgin traffic shape and throttle but let's face it, most of them do now. It's a piss poor state of affairs really, we're paying more and more for a service which in my eyes is getting worse and worse due to traffic management. I've always believed that ADSL customers should have to pay proportionally less for their broadband connection, dependent on the average speed they get each month as opposed to the supposed speed of the connection.