to not want to pay 50p a month on top of my phone bill to pay for other people's internet when there are OAP's who have to choose between food and heat in the winter?

[FluffyBunnyGoneBad]

Isn't food/gas/electricity more important then internet access? I don't mind paying 50p but there are more important things that people need then high speed internet.

scratchet - yes that sounds good in theory - but

a) you have to hope there's a computer free when you get there

b) that you actually have the means to get there.

It's not so much the jobless, but their kids who need access to be able to keep up with the curriculum at school. The news report doesn't say that this will be provided, but that acccess to broadband will be available for everyone.

It was a revelation when I moved to just outside Brussels - no more dial-up; fast and reliable broadband, unlimited downloads and no problems. If they can do it here, why can't we do it in UK?

and also lets not forget it's not just jobless that the proposal was/is aimed at - it's those on low incomes - which is a staggering large number of people.

I was under the impression that we have already been paying this 50p for the last couple of years to get pensioners ready for the digital switchover, that has now been dealt with and they are now trying to find something else to do with that 50p.

If all the MPs who scammed us re their expenses actually paid the money back then that would cover an awful lot of 50 pences.
I would not trust them with what is simply another stealth tax.

While we're on the subject of upgrading state infrastructure can I add an extra test of public opinion (well, Mumsnet) in here?

Back in May the government announced that the UK is to have a complete smart meter roll out by 2020. This will probably cost in the order of £150 per home, which the utilities will partially recoup through raising their rates, over the period of the roll out.

It actually probably works out at the same price to the consumer as upgrading the broadband network. Plus with a smart meter you have a fighting chance of saving enough energy to compensate for the extra £6-15 per year.

Do people see upgrading the gas and electric network as important, like broadband?

Books were scarce at my school Qally, there really were not enough to go round. I was not allowed to borrow text books from the library as they were for the 6th form only. I can see the plus side of being able to work from home but doesn't this turn home into yet another extension of the office rather then somewhere to get away from it all, a sanctuary? The expansion of the internet would bring work into the home though wouldn't it?

I have for years been paying the same tv licence as the rest of the country, but the area we live in can't get any of the digital signals - no bbc 3,4, no bbc news channel, cbbc, cbeebies etc etc.
In my area when the switchover happens we will still have to pay for the licence AND for a satellite dish/cable (you have to pay for the freesat installation, before you all start!) in order to get what most of the country can get free as long as they have a set top box which can be got for a tenner.

So your 50p to get the country on broadband pales into insignificance compared to my licence fee for which I get half the farking service.

Now, on to the main subject.

My parents are 75 and 79. It was bloody hard teaching them to use a computer and email etc, but at their age and since my dad is about to give up his driving licence, decent internet access is a lifeline for them. THey can keep in touch with their other 3 daughters who live abroad, do shopping, catch up on news without having to fork out 90p a day for their newspaper etc etc, book flights, check travel insurance without being on the phone racking up a bill for hours ETC ETC ETC.
So I would gladly pay more than 50p on my landline if everyone can have the same internet access as them.

FINALLY there are a lot of areas of the uk where broadband is needed for busineses - can you imagine running a business these days and not having decent internet access for email, web hosting, taking orders etc?

So thats 2 x 50p I would be happy to pay.

Yes but we've all been paying through the nose for our services for years. I remember when my water bill used to be £70 a year! (god I'm old!!), now it's closer to £300 and there's no difference to the services I get, there's still leaks everywhere. If people have been paying for internet services then why's it OK to ask for more? I do stick with saying that there are better, more important things to fund but in a way, havn't the country already been funding this?

Don't think anyone has yet mentioned that most people in the truly rural parts that broadband does not reach easily are not poor. There is a lot of "rural" poverty but they tend to be in small communities not in the isolated houses. Those often belong to the rich - and if they choose to run their business from an isolated rural area why should everyone else pay for it?

I would happily pay more on my water bill to ensure that poor people paid less but broadband - no.

I currently live in a small town in a rural area, so would probably benefit - it's still wrong. We aren't talking about not having any net access, it just won't be as fast.

I don't mind paying the 50p... in other countries more affluent areas pay for ALL the electricity and water services in impoverished areas - internet doesn't even come into it! Elec and water - basic necessities. Doesn't matter how well off you personally are, if you have a certain postcode you are heavily subsidising those far less fortunate than yourselves.

Ok until recently most of east lancashire had no decent broadband access and small businesses in the impoverished areas of east lancashire had no decent internet access, thereby were losing out on trade as they could not compete with businesses in other areas offering online sales.
NOT rich people choosing to run their businesses in some remote rural location!!
Its not just 'rural areas' its areas where due to the low average income, the cable/broadband companies would not have got as high a take up of their services and thus would not have made as much profit as they'd have liked, so they didn't put the broadband in even if some wanted it.
For the businesses in east lancs a lot of funding for broadband was very heavily subsidised by huge amounts of money from EC and government pots. Ie from all our taxes, so we all paid for it anyway, we just didn't receive an itemised statement for it.

Oh and every time we buy a stamp we subsidise people (rich or not) who live in out of the way places as its the same for me to send a letter to someone at the far end of the outer hebrides via train, boat, van etc as it is to send one to someone in the next town.

Good point Flibberty

I'll have to start a thread about my stamps subsidising people who are sending letters further afield now!

Joke!

Tatt: "We aren't talking about not having any net access, it just won't be as fast."

The problem is these day that all the websites etc are built for broadband, and if you only have dial-up, most are impossible to use! Email is okay on dial-up, but not if you want to send attachments, or when someone hasn't thought that you don't have broadband before they send you something!

Here we don't have broadband (rural South East, hardly the ends of the earth!) and the Parish Council have dreadful problems becuase the District Council send all the planning applications through by email these days and won't send them by post!

I could go on and on - it really is becoming a necessity these days!

I think I am sitting on the fence on this one. We live rurally and have similar infrastructure issues to elastamum and flibberty. But housing is cheaper here and we both work from home as much as possible to reduce travel costs / impact, so we rely on a decent broadband connection. Ours is really borderline and can be terribly slow.

Greater bandwidth is required because sites are designed based on fast city connections. I totally resent it when it takes ages to open a web page these days as it is loaded up with graphic advertisements whizzing all over the place. Well, not whizzing here, but that's the point. But it means we do need a better connection just to keep up with normal shopping, email, work, weather, etc.

But the point I want to make is that there is a much more glaring problem with rural communications, which affects us 100 times worse than slow internet. It is mobile phone coverage. Where is the government initiative to do anything about improving this? No matter how many times we tell people, DON'T call the mobile, we have no coverage, we still miss important calls from the doctor, nursery, not to mention clients and work related calls.

You might think I am being unreasonable to expect the government to do something about this, but how's this for an answer: we had a very important meeting scheduled at the Home Office. How did they communicate with us regarding the meeting time confirmation requirements? By TEXT MESSAGE (!) which of course we didn't get until 3 days later when we drove through a coverage area. So mobile phone text messaging is now apparently an approved form of official government communication. Think that one through...

I haven't read the whole thread, so don't know if anyone's already said this, but I work in an area that doesn't have any broadband at all and will not be getting high speed broadband.

Trying to run a business with dial up is a nightmare as we have to connect a dozen times a day, especially as it is REALLY slow, at one point it took 15 mins to connect. Bloody PITA.

Yes, good point about mobiles Ponymum. We are lucky here because we're up a hill so we have patchy coverage which enables us to recieve text messages and at least see who is calling us, even if we can't actually hear them speaking! But you're right, however many times you say to people "always try the landline first because I don't have a good signal on the mobile at home", it's such an inbuilt thing these days to call the mobile first as the best way of getting hold of people . . . I sit and shout at those (Vodafone?) adverts which say "we cover 98% of the country", when what they mean is "we cover 98% of the population", which is a very different thing!

Do you all really think it will remain at 50p for very long?

We can't get cable so we have to have a BT line. I am sick and tired of getting phone bills where call charges are less than 1/4 of the bill. If I could ditch BT I would.

Why not? It's for a one-off investment in infrastructure surely? I'm sure the 50p will remain long after the infrastructure is in place though.

Wouldn't you say that mobile phone coverage is more important then broadband then? You can't call the mountain rescue when you are stuck up a hill without good coverage can you?

I'm not sure. We live in a rural area: no mains gas, etc. Not many buses, either.

But we CHOSE the area. And there are many pluses: our children play safely outside alone and have done since they were small.

Why should city dwellers subsidise my broadband?