UK agrees tax to back broadband

A $10 levy on fixed phone lines to fund the roll-out of high-speed broadband networks was greenlit Wednesday by the UK government. The tax will be used to ensure that 90% of the population has access to next-generation broadband by 2017. Announcing the move, the government's Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said, "We are modernizing the U.K.'s digital infrastructure and, in the process, creating thousands more skilled jobs." However, critics of the tax, announced in summer's "Digital Britain" report, said rolling out broadband to remote areas of Blighty should be left to the market and not subsidized by the public.