Confusion unbounded
Malcolm Corbett has *nothing* to do with the announcement of the phone tax, so his comments about fibre to the home are just that. Comment on the main story by an interested party. While he makes good points about providing real competition for the 'last-mile' (or five) to BT, he is really completely detached from the real world. We really cannot afford a complete new infrastructure for the countryside.
What many people commenting here do not understand is that it is not just people living in the middle of Dartmoor who cannot get broadband, but people who live 5 miles out from a town with a local telephone exchange. Where I live in Somerset, I get ~7Mb/S, but I live about 0.75 from the exchange, as-the-crow-flies. But if you live a couple of miles out of my small town (population of around 10,000), you are lucky to get 1Mb/S, and if you are unfortunate enough to have significant runs of copper-on-a-pole (or worse, aluminium), then you are likely to get zilch, nada, nothing. We're not talking about wilderness, we're talking small towns and villages with green space between them that do not need an exchange to provide phone services.
It is too easy to complain that people should not have moved to the country, there are many, many people for whom it has been their whole life, not a lifestyle choice. Why should they make a 'lifestyle choice' just to get *ANY* internet access.
What I think that the bill aims to provide is a basic 2Mb/S service to 95% of the population. This hardly counts as a "super-fast" broadband service, and the comments about 50Mb/S for farmer Giles who just looks at sheep-porn just show how fnorking blinkered and uneducated some of you cnuts are.
Technology limitations and cost is what is preventing universal fast net access (how I hate it when 'broadband' is used inappropriately).
What should be the aim is single fibre bundle to a roadside box in the middle of a village, with copper to the house, possibly combined with the phone system to provide a DSL type connection. But even this is a major upheaval when you currently have separate metal wires from each dwelling to the nearest exchange. Whilst I abhor additional taxation, providing some financial support for rural *communities* is almost certainly a Good Thing(tm)
Reading through the BS that some people are spouting makes my blood boil. I'm off for a beer to cool down!