UK ISP TalkTalk has labelled plans to provide 270,000 disadvantage families with free broadband and laptops as "muddled thinking".
Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced today that following a successful trial of the Home Access Scheme, which saw 20,000 families in Oldham and Suffolk provided with a free laptop and broadband access for a year, the initiative will be rolled out to the rest of the UK.
To qualify, homes must earn £15,500 per year or be on income support. Once the year is up, the disadvantaged families will be allowed to keep the laptop, but will have to fun the internet connection themselves.
"No-one would dispute that getting low income families online is a good thing. But the Government's other initiatives are working to discourage uptake and make internet access unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of other families," Andrew Heaney, executive director of strategy and regulation at TalkTalk, said.
Heaney was referring to the 'Broadband tax', which was unveiled by the Chancellor Alistair Darling, in last month's pre-budget report.
The tax will see families with a telephone line forking out an extra £6 per year, which will be used in the Next Generation Fund that aim to upgrade the UK's aging copper network to fibre, in a bid to bring 2Mbps internet access to everyone in the UK.
TalkTalk said the additional burden of the broadband tax along with plans to prosecute illegal downloaders, which will be funded by the government, could lead to 600,000 financially stretched families being forced to give up their broadband connections.
"We've always said that the phone tax is regressive and unfair and this latest announcement - for all its superficial appeal - demonstrates the inconsistency in the government's approach rather well," explained Heaney.
"This tax is not about getting people onto broadband - it is about taxing everyone to allow the relatively well-off in rural areas to get super-fast speeds."
See also: TalkTalk slams "misguided" Bono for net piracy comments
Comments
cyberdoyle said: it isnt about taxing everyone to get the relatively rich rurals online its just a smokescreen to raise dosh to put the rural poor on two lines costing twice as much and protecting the copper cabal in the same way gov is protecting the music industry Two broken businesses propped up by a broken gov Not much hope of rural bb in conservative gov they want the money and investment in the cities The rurals are amongst the poorest in the country I dont know where the idea comes from they are rich We all know where the real wealth is
RG said: It maybe easy for some to say 50p on a phoneline isnt much but with all sorts of businesses and local councils wanting to put an extra 1 on this and 50p on that people with average or low incomes cannot afford any more extras
TBC said: Id just like to say that Talk Talks comments sound like sour grapes Talk Talk were approached to participate on this contract to provide a broadband service However instead of taking part in a scheme which essentially will widen access to broadband to families across England they have chosen not to instead citing a broadband tax as being regressiveTalk Talk sorry to hear your profit margins are being hit but there are plenty of other providers willing to get in on the action And citing that number of people will lose access to broadband as a result is ridiculous for a 6 price increase- especially is ridiculous when this is funding to create an infrastructure that companies like Talk Talk rely on What evidence is that number based on anywayAll sounds politically motivated to me - oh hang on thats why this statement was released today