UK Labour promising free high speed for ALL

Harry Palmr

Pretty amazing promise to make (but then a GE is coming!), Labour across the water have made free high speed BB for every home and business by 2030 part of the policy programme.

From guardian

Labour promise to provide free Wi-Fi to every home

A new tax on Big Tech companies including Facebook, Google and Amazon would help fund Labour’s plans to provide homes and businesses with free internet connections, while the part of BT responsible for broadband would also be taken under public ownership.

A new British Broadband public service would boost 5G connectivity and deliver fast full-fibre internet across the country, where parts have poor internet connections, the party said. If in government, it would aim to deliver the service at no cost to members of the public by 2030 after integrating the broadband-relevant parts of BT into the new public entity.

Jeremy Corbyn will make the announcement in Lancaster on Friday where is expected to describe the new free public service as central to his plans to transform the country and economy.

The rollout would begin with communities which have the worst broadband access, including rural and remote communities and some inner city-areas, followed by towns and smaller centres, and then lastly by areas currently well served by super-fast or ultrafast broadband.

Labour said it will be paid for through the party’s “Green Transformation fund” and the greater taxation of corporations, adding that it will save the average person £30.30 a month.

There would be a one-off capital cost to rollout the full-fibre network of £15.3 billion, in addition to the government’s existing and not yet spent £5 billion commitment.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell is expected to say that the plans represented “public ownership for the future” and would challenge “rip-off ‘out-of-contract pricing”

tsue921i8wljb3

Seems like nonsense to be honest. Why not free electricity or central heating, or are they coming in future manifestos?

Harry Palmr

Analysis piece here

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/nov/15/how-feasible-is-labour-free-broadband-plan-and-part-nationalisation-of-bt

ednwireland

Wells Whining Scarf wrote: »

Seems like nonsense to be honest. Why not free electricity or central heating, or are they coming in future manifestos?

thats next week when they dont go up the polls

ED E

Recipe for disaster.

Johnboy1951

This part would indicate that the Irish state intervention in NBP is on firm ground, which is nice to read

EU guidance published in 2013 on the issue of broadband rollout warned that “state intervention should limit as much as possible the risk of crowding out private investments, of altering commercial investment incentives and ultimately of distorting competition contrary to the common interest of the European Union”.

But the guidance suggested that a significant degree of market distortion would be acceptable if the government’s intervention would “result in a higher level, or a faster rate of broadband coverage and penetration than would be the case without state aid”.

Labour’s proposal would need to demonstrate, for example, “that private investors are not in a position to provide in the near future adequate broadband coverage to all citizens or users, thus leaving a significant part of the population uncon­nected”.

Whatever about the Br. Gov. taking the physical infrastructure into state ownership, the idea of providing completely free access seems to be a bit weird.

westyIrl

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Whatever about the Br. Gov. taking the physical infrastructure into state ownership, the idea of providing completely free access seems to be a bit weird.

The free bit just makes no sense whatsoever in any economy. Both major parties are just talking shop for the election but labour's plan is so far out there it lacks any credibility.