Proposals in theDigital Britainreport will transfer billion of
pounds to old companies and tax the very companies it claims to
want to help, says Microsoft UK's former national technology
officer.
Jerry Fishenden, who left
Microsoft last week after 12 years with the software firm, said the
report puzzled him. Will taxing broadband users encourage them to
adopt the technology? he asked.
"I suspect many people will opt for their mobile phones. A lot
will depend on what content they can get from fixed broadband," he
said.
Communications minister Stephen Carter announced last week that
the government would introduce a tax of £6 a year on fixed-wire
phone lines to help pay to upgrade network speeds.
The government plans to use £200m left over from the digital
switchover of television broadcasting plus matching funds from
industry to extend 2Mbps network access to all households by 2012,
Carter said.
But Fishenden questioned whether the tax, which will raise an
estimated £175m to £250m a year, will be enough to deliver
"superfast" network access to 90% of the population by 2017.
The
Broadband
Stakeholders Group, a supplier-led lobby group, estimates it
would cost £5.1bn to install fibre to the kerb (FTTC). This would
provide a top download speed of around 40Mbps to 50Mbps to
homes.
But Fishenden doubted whether the core UK infrastructure could
cope now or in future with growing demand for bandwidth.
Fishenden said very few people wanted superfast or even
high-speed broadband all the time. "When I want to download a high
definition film I want all the bandwidth so that I can get the
content in five seconds. But I don't need it after that, while I am
watching the film," he said.
The answer was to supply bandwidth on demand for both downloads
and uploads because more people were using video for phone calls
and teleconferencing, he said.
Countries such as Japan and South Korea plan to have fibre to
the home capable of delivering at least 100Mbps, with 1Gbps in
future.