Telecoms.com

There is political gaming going on ahead of the UK general election in May, with the government cancelling plans for a £0.50 per month levy on broadband as it rushes the Finance Bill through Parliament.

The proposed levy was one of the key points of the Digital Britain white paper unveiled in the summer of 2009, designed to help create equal access to at least 2Mbps broadband nationwide by 2012 through the creation of an investment fund.

Under the proposal a charge of £0.50 per month would be levied against all copper lines, with the proceeds going into an independent Next Generation Fund to be made available as a subsidy to operators willing to extend broadband coverage to the final third of homes where it is not available.

The Labour-backed proposal was controversial, and was interpreted by critics as a way of getting existing broadband users to subsidise the rollout of the technology into hard to reach areas without getting any benefit.

In somewhat related news, a proposed ten per cent tax hike on cider was also scrapped from the Finance Bill.