Call this the most crazy idea i've got

[SpencerUk]

But what if the councils were to bundle Digital Region FTTC into your council tax and essentially give you inclusive broadband?

Before you dismiss straight away, hear it out.

£150 extra a year on your council tax is 40/10..That equates to £12.50 a month.

Extra £50 on that would get you 80/20 which is £17 a month

Now consider that not all of South Yorkshire can obtain FTTC Digital Region, so you knock off £150 off their council tax or keep it same as is or if they don't want it...but if the councils could make the Broadband cheaper or on par with competition who's going to refuse it!....Now consider its around 2 million homes it was designed to get to..So £150 X 2 million..do the math..

South Yorkshire has always struggled to fill houses, this could be a way of doing it..It would also service the debt and get users on board pretty quick. Naturally you'd need a company to manage it (BT?). Not only that, but it doesn't deem the project as faulty as well and it allows the donkeys who ran it previous to come out smelling roses.

Assuming it because a little more efficient financially could also plug up the gaps in South Yorkshire and grow as a company?

What do you think to this idea?

[alexatkin]

I can't see it being feasible on a number of levels.

1) The extra accounting work to do it
2) Not everyone who CAN get broadband wants it
3) Which ISP would service it? What about the fact you need a land line?

If it included an ISP than that would be rather anti-competitive as the other ISPs could call fould play. Even if you were to be able to choose which ISP to use, Virgin and Openreach have good reason to be annoyed.

I do think it could have been done better and with the Government claiming broadband is so important to everyone it would make sense to bundle it in somehow, at least for social housing. However I would be very surprised if that was possible, there is bound to be some legal complication that prevents it.

I still think its likely the reason the Digital Region cabinets didn't have huge stickers on them advertising the service was due to regulatory reasons, or something like that. Basically its a problem that seems to always occur when its a council run project, they are not allowed the same leeway as private businesses as its meant to PROTECT private business. Its complete BS, but there it is.

[SpencerUk]

I don't have all the answers to the issue, I can merely just suggest ideas xD

1: Extra accounting work sure but I'm sure the councils want to get their money they invested back.
2: See my point about Tax rebate back or something
3: Could put this out to tender to bring cash in or have a list of ISP's to choose from?

I think the cabinets didn't have stickers on because Digital Region maintain that it wasn't their job to market the product, that was down the ISP's which they couldn't get on in the first place because of their own poor advertising.

I think the biggest factor here is trying to service the debt. Anyone can come in with an idea, but it has to incorporate that debt..somehow.

Closing thought though, if broadband was included in your council tax and it could be done and it worked out better value than going with someone like say BT Retail, would you do it?

[essenby]

Your closing point is the clincher I think @SpencerUK. The *BIG* players in the ISP world have realised that internet connection is almost as much about content as it is about the actual connection. SKY GO, BT SPORT, and VIRGIN Tivo are the big draws to get customers across to their services. Simply offering a good connection at a realistic price isn't going to be enough in the future as people will then need to factor in the cost of the content they want to use. And with a good fast connection they WILL want to use it.

If your idea had been implemented along with the network as it was built and rolled out there may well have been an excellent chance of it being a success. But now, with a large proportion of potential subscribers already with other providers (and maybe locked in to contracts) without being able to offer them the content there is little to tempt them away.

Missed opportunity I'm afraid - as with most government (both local and national) led projects.

[SpencerUk]

We could argue @essenby that to fund the likes of of Sky Go and BT Sport, the prices are put up as a result. Example;

BT raising prices by 6.5%

Sky new prices 2013

The idea put forward isn't without it's flaws as @alexatkin pointed out but if you could get the average Broadband speed of South Yorkshire up, it will attract attention again. I maintain that I still blame the councils and Ruby Slippers for letting it go to pot. BT offered an olive branch and they turned their noses up against it.

In another question, as you say, some people have moved away but would you say no to having a second FTTC line relatively cheaper than getting it with another company?..I would!

[essenby]

@SpencerUK - Nah, don't want to argue ;-)

Apologies if I appeared negative, not really what I intended because I think it would have been a brilliant "blue sky" idea if it had been implemented at the right time. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old pessimist but I can't see it going the way we'd like it to at this point in the story. If it does begin to grow wings though I'm all in and will do anything I can to promote it.

[SpencerUk]

I will continue to push my MP. Although I'm about to put an interesting article with 2 attachments up..worth a read..

[WillPS]

It's how it should be!

But it would be deemed anti-competitive and thus illegal.