[科技前沿]英国电信公司称手机使用者应该支付宽带税

英国电信公司称手机使用者应该支付宽带税

来源：The Guardian 编辑：Vicki

英国电信公司近日向政府提出向移动电话用户每年征收6英镑的税。上个月，通讯部长), Lord Carter在其数码英国报告中提出向固定电话使用者每个月征收50英镑的税，以保证在2017年之前英国90%以上的住户都可以享用超快的网速。但是该项提案有可能暂时无法通过，因为需要通过一项新的法案。最早也要到明年3月份才可以，那个时候大家的关注点都在大选上。

Mobile phone users should share the pain of broadband tax, says BT

BT has called for the government's proposed 6-a-year broadband tax to be extended to mobile phone users in a move that could reduce the size of the tax.

In his Digital Britain report last month, the communications minister(通讯部长), Lord Carter, proposed a 50p-a-month levy（征税） on every fixed-line phone to meet the bill for getting the next generation of super-fast broadband networks to 90% of UK households by 2017.

But it is not only fixed-line companies that would be able to bid for some of the estimated 1.5bn that would be raised by the tax. Mobile phone operators would also be able to use the money. As a result, BT's director of industry policy and regulation（英国电信产业政策和规章主任）, Emma Gilthorpe, said yesterday that if mobile, wireless-based operators did go through that bid process then "the government should consider the opportunity to widen the base for the tax and possibly reduce the amount that each individual household pays".

BT reckons （认为）it is incongruous（不一致的） that the levy only applies to fixed-line phones even though mobile phone companies and other businesses that want to use wireless solutions can bid for the cash for next-generation networks.

Carter proposed the new broadband tax because there is little chance of the market being able to make an economic case for pushing fibre-optic（光纤） networks and other super-fast broadband services beyond about 60% of the population. With the Treasury unwilling to make any money available from general taxation（税收）, the telephone levy aims to plug the funding gap.

BT has already announced plans to invest 1.5bn over the next three years on a super-fast network but it will only reach four of every 10 homes. Virgin Media, meanwhile, is already offering broadband at 50Mb a second – the sort of speed expected from next-generation networks – but it covers only about half of the country.

Gilthorpe's comments, at a Westminster Media Forum debate on Digital Britain, came as BT announced that it is speeding up the rollout（首次展示） of its next-generation network.

Having originally planned to have about half a million homes connected by next March, it yesterday said it would have 1.5m homes connected by next summer. By the end of this summer Virgin Media will have completed its next-generation network plan, putting its 50Mb a second service within reach of 12.5m homes.

But there are fears within the industry that Carter's broadband tax could fail as it would require a new finance bill, which is unlikely to appear before next March. By then the government will be focused on a forthcoming general election（即将到来的大选） and a new tax on consumers is unlikely to be a vote-winner.

Keke View：英国是世界上较早实行普选制的国家，其选举制度不仅对英国自身的民主政治体系具有十分重要的意义，而且对美国等西方国家民主政治体系也具有十分广泛而深远的影响。在英国, 君主(monarch)以及下议院（又称平民院）和上议院（又称贵族院）两院(House of Commons and House of Lords)是法定的三大立法主体。当然君王的立法地位只是流于形式，而两院中的下议院又具有主导地位。