[brundles]

I agree with the concept of a universal basic level of service and that as with the other services we take for granted (despite grumblings and complaints), some form of tax is the only way to achieve it. I'm just a bit suspicious about how that's going to be achieved at who's expense/profit.

Looking at agendas of the two key players involved...

We have uk.labour.gov - looking for a nice report to show they're forward thinking with current technologies and expectations and perhaps see this as a handy way to try and connect with the techno-youth and sway a few votes in next years election.

In the second corner, we have BT - the only company that is able to (obliged to as pointed out) provide service nation wide but doesn't want to spend the money themselves as it's not profitable. That said, I suspect that if the service was better they would see higher revenues from those areas so having somebody else pick up the tab is ideal.

Virgin meanwhile, who are in the process of upgrading their minimum service to 10 meg, will see bugger all (excuse my language) of this money for that reason (I'm sure BT will strongly object to the tax being used for expansion rather than upgrade to minimum level).

As already posted, nothing has been said about how the tax will be distributed but I'm extremely suspicous about it.