This morning we reported on the initiative announced by Gordon Brown to offer free laptops and broadband access to 270,000 low-income families as part of the Government's "commitment to aspiration" "to ensure parents on a low-income have broadband access to the internet".
The Prime Minister announced that the laptops give away "is part of a £300-million plan to link families to their children's schools via broadband - where parents and guardians would also be able to access progress reports on attainment, behaviour and other needs."
We questioned how this free laptop and broadband initiative will be funded, as the proposed broadband tax is supposed to be allocated solely to the extended roll-out of super fast fibre-optic broadband by 2017.
And now TalkTalk has issued a press release heavily critical of the initiative. The statement from TalkTalk links this latest Government broadband initiative to the other broadband plans outlined in the Digital Economy Bill.
The hard hitting TalkTalk statement reads as follows:
"The Prime Minister's announcement that 270,000 low income families will receive a free computer and free broadband access betrays some deeply muddled thinking. No-one would dispute that getting low income families online is a good thing. But the Government's other initiatives are working to discourage uptake and make broadband internet access unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of other families."
"As a result of two government proposals - the broadband tax and copyright protection - families face an extra cost of £30 a year to stay online. Demand modelling shows that this additional burden could lead to 600,000 financially stretched families being forced to give up their broadband connections."
"We've always said that the phone (broadband ) tax is regressive and unfair and this latest announcement - for all its superficial appeal - demonstrates the inconsistency in the Government's approach rather well. This tax is not about getting people onto broadband - it is about taxing everyone to allow the relatively well-off in rural areas to get super-fast broadband speeds. As for the costs of protecting copyright, it is obscene that poorer families face the prospect of being priced out of the internet in order to prop up the outdated business models of big studios and record labels."
It is unclear if TalkTalk's view is shared by the UK's other largest broadband providers as they have yet to comment.
