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Fibre-Optic Broadband
Broadband business tax review 'scrapped'
Friday 13th August 2010, by Daniel King
It has been reported that the government has back-tracked on its pre-election promise to review business rates of fibre optic broadband networks.
In a statement between himself and the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), broadband minister Ed Vaizey has said that there will be no review of the rates, Computer Weekly reported.
The decision has left concerns that the two fibre optic broadband giants, BT and Virgin Media, will benefit from the decision to scrap the review because of their longer cable runs, leaving other broadband suppliers struggling to compete.
In an official statement, the VOA said that it is committed to working with broadband providers in order to ensure "fair and accurate rating" in the emerging fibre optic market.
Mr Vaizey commented: "I welcome the work that VOA has been doing with industry. These new guidelines will offer much greater clarity for businesses that invest in broadband networks and give them the opportunity to feed their views to the VOA."
BT recently announced that it is has connected houses in the Fife area of Scotland to its fibre optic network.
Around 4,000 homes in the area will be able to access download speeds of up to 40 MB/s, while upload speeds could reach 10 MB/s.
It comes as part of the company's £1.5 billion investment in fibre optic cabling, with the eventual intention of offering high-speed broadband access to up to 10 million UK households.
This would mean that 40 per cent of houses would be able to access the service by 2012.
Categories: Broadband
