Labours Broadband proposal...
- Thread starter Tooter
- Start date
Hmmm.... when you put it like that it does sound pretty good.
YouSir
Retired from Urban
'Labour has costed its policy from a report produced by Frontier Economics in 2018, which was originally produced for the Department of Digital, Culture Media and Sport.' - BBC
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Were you not able to work that out for yourself? Maybe you should tell your girlfriend.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
In fairness, Marty1 , and no disrespect intended... It really isn't rocket science. Why shouldn't the likes of Facebook, Amazon, et al, pay for the internet? They're the people who have accumulated their vast sums from its use, so surely they're the people who should pay for it? It's how the world should work. If your whole business model revolves around it, and you're a fucking billionaire, you should pay for it... for EVERYONE!
krtek a houby
Against all gods
Oh, are you a delivery driver?
Why? Are you an electric car manufacturer uniform designer?
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
Nope.
And, nope again.
There's 2 main elements to this grand plan:
1 - Capital expenditure, the investment required to establish 'British Broadband' and to roll out fibre to all, Labour seems to put this figure at £20bn, whereas BT says £35bn. That report suggests under a 'national monopoly' the roll-out cost would indeed be £20bn, but that doesn't include the cost of taking over Openreach (current main network) & other bits of BT mentioned, which is estimated at £15bn.
Therefore, it looks like the correct cost for setting-up all this all is indeed £35bn, to be financed from borrowing, so will need to be paid back with interest at some point, that seems to have been brushed over in the headline figures, but the devil is in the detail.
2 - Annual operating costs, Labour puts this at £230m, which will be funded by a tax on bit tech companies, this is the part that's totally unexplained. Although that report confirms a 'national monopoly' network would be cheaper than competing networks, i.e Openreach, Virgin, CityFibre, etc., it sees it as a wholesaler, leasing the network to various different ISPs/retailers, much like the current Openreach model, so households would still be paying for it.
Labour plans to take over Openreach, and their 32,000 employers costing £850m pa in wages, and promises no job loses, PLUS other parts of BT too, reportedly taking current total annual operating costs to well north of £2bn pa, not £230m, and that's before you factor in the repayment & interest on the initial £35bn investment!
Something else brushed-over, is the fact that if 'British Broadband' provides free ultra-fast broadband, why would anyone pay another network, for example Virgin, which has over 5 million homes connected to it's network. Potentially that's another 5 million customers switching, increasing staffing levels & other costs.
The £230m 'tech tax' is not going to come anywhere near covering all this, there's going to an annual shortfall of well over £2bn, I am interested in knowing where that would be coming from.
It shouldn’t matter to this discussion what the existing cost is of running the current network because we already pay it — this is just an argument about whether what we already pay should be funnelled through a private company or whether it could better just be done by the state. Whether the existing cost is £230m or ten times that is irrelevant to this point.
And this isn’t expenditure anyway, it’s investment. When the Tories want to justify removing billions from the public purse by reducing tax rates for businesses, they claim that, in the end, total fiscal income will go up because the lack of tax will encourage investment. Well this is just the inverse — invest money in capital projects and people will then have opportunities for economic activity that will increases the tax base. In the end, the government will receive more in tax from the results of universal broadband than it spends on that broadband. The only difference between this and its inverse regarding reduced tax is that this one is true.
And this isn’t expenditure anyway, it’s investment. When the Tories want to justify removing billions from the public purse by reducing tax rates for businesses, they claim that, in the end, total fiscal income will go up because the lack of tax will encourage investment. Well this is just the inverse — invest money in capital projects and people will then have opportunities for economic activity that will increases the tax base. In the end, the government will receive more in tax from the results of universal broadband than it spends on that broadband. The only difference between this and its inverse regarding reduced tax is that this one is true.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
Yes, we already pay it, at an average cost of £30pm, per household, under this plan it will be free to every household, so who pays the piper?
I've no problem with investment in the network, as a state monopoly, I just what them to explain how the ongoing running costs are covered, when it's free to everyone.
MrCurry
right after this urgent rest
I remember working within BT head office, and needing an ADSL line installed. It took literally months, about 3 if I remember correctly. Nice to know they were just as useless doing work for themselves, so it wasn’t spite towards the customers.
Who pays the piper?
Same way we fund the NHS, parks, schools, museums and other communism things
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
So, you mean by taxes on us? Fine, but they need to be honest about that.
kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
Who paid for free radio? Get the broadcasters i.e. amazon ebay facebook google to pay for it through taxation on their uk gained profits.
Awful communism on the railways too 
The truth about Richard Branson's Virgin Rail profits | Richard Branson | The Guardian
The truth about Richard Branson's Virgin Rail profits | Richard Branson | The Guardian
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Get off youtube.
Anyway not sure this is right thread really but it diverted to a broader discussion on labour policy last night so...
Anyway not sure this is right thread really but it diverted to a broader discussion on labour policy last night so...
Perfectly reasonable idea
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Corbyn's team bossing the media narrative/policy discourse feels like the 2017 campaign all over again. Maybe it wasn't just Maybot...maybe the vermin really can't campaign any more?Get off youtube.
Anyway not sure this is right thread really but it diverted to a broader discussion on labour policy last night so...
rekil
to menny cranks
I'm sure you'll be shocked to discover that he's posted yet another video from a channel stuffed with content like this.
Bin the scum.
Proper Tidy
Arsed
I think it might be quite similar to '17 in that labour will close gap over campaign through moving debate via policy announcements but won't be enough time. Hung parliament, tories largest party, labour lead the polls in months after GE (although actually would prob be a leadership campaign to take into account).
mauvais
on reddit or something
I think I have mixed thoughts about this proposal. Monopolies like national comms backbone, railways and water are inherently ripe for nationalisation, both in economic terms and the classic responsibilities of the state. On the other hand, more locally, competition through LLU has probably advanced the state of UK broadband.
More fundamentally how important is it? Obviously Internet access is now effectively mandatory but how deficient is the current state of UK broadband and who suffers? Rural communities are one example but a low percentage now. The national average is apparently about 50Mbps, which lags behind some nations but is nonetheless a reasonable service. So I remain to be convinced that it's that high a priority.
Focusing in on the detail is kind of missing the point though I guess - it's another redistributive scheme, so why not.
More fundamentally how important is it? Obviously Internet access is now effectively mandatory but how deficient is the current state of UK broadband and who suffers? Rural communities are one example but a low percentage now. The national average is apparently about 50Mbps, which lags behind some nations but is nonetheless a reasonable service. So I remain to be convinced that it's that high a priority.
Focusing in on the detail is kind of missing the point though I guess - it's another redistributive scheme, so why not.
It is an important long term investment. An essential part of life and it will help a lot of people.
50mbps is 'okay' but we are behind the good countries. I am paying £53 a month for tax dodge Virgin and would prefer to invest in the country.
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