The impossible tax
> the fees that UK mobile networks pay
in other words, a government tax.
One that won't hit the operators, as they will all have been taxed equally, so when they pass it on to the subscribers (shocker!) they will all raise their tariffs equally and therefore the "competitiveness" won't change. Sure, there may be some jostling, so one supplier will raise the cost per minute, while another will raise the cost per megabyte (and no doubt, surreptitiously slip in a little extra for themselves) but if their costs go up, there's only one outcome - and that's another dip into our wallets.
So, all this does is take money from the public (and businesses) and transfer it, via the mobile operators who will simply be acting as tax-collectors, to the government. They will then congratulate themselves on keeping income tax low - even though it's generally considered a "progressive" tax: that takes more from those who can afford it - and raising indirect taxes which affect the rich and the poor alike - unless the poor stop using their phones and thereby avoid (oooh, there's a nasty term) paying the freshly raised tax on talking.