Would You Pay an Internet Broadband Tax?

An anonymous reader writes "Remember the Internet Tax Freedom Act? The whole point was to prevent the government from ever taxing the Internet. But that's the proposal from the FCC — and backed by companies like Google, AT&T and Sprint. Would you pay a buck or two extra for fast access — or vote for someone who thinks you should? 'If members of Congress understood that the FCC is contemplating a broadband tax, they'd sit up and take notice,' said Derek Turner, research director for Free Press, a consumer advocacy group that opposes the tax."

Comments

Already been done

[Scutter]

Weren't the telcos already given a crapload of money to expand broadband access, which they proceeded to piss away? I'm not paying yet another tax, on top of a USF, an FCC surcharge, a tiered-pricing plan, and all of the other ways they already nickle-and-dime us to death. We are already not getting what we're paying for.

Re:Universal service.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I already pay a Universal Connect Fee on my phone bill which subsidize the phone company to go into rural areas. Never mind the fact that the AT&T was subsidized to put lines out there in the first place. When they came up with the Universal Connect Fee in 1997 ( 15 years ago ) they promised better communication access to rural customers. Not to mention, in October 2011 congress justified this UCF to stay on all of our phone bills by having the funds transition over to the "Connect America Fund" to subsidize broadband access in these same rural areas.

Why the hell would I want to pay that same fee on my broadband bill? Especially since the Fee has been collected for over a decade and I see no real competition or expansion in rural connectivity since its inception.

Sure Google, AT&T, and Sprint are for it. After all its more corporate welfare earmarked for their use. They act like they won't charge the rural customers for this access, and believe me they will.

People who say yes to this are naive.

Didn't we already PAY for faster internet?

[u-235-sentinel]

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm

I've been hearing about this for years but I was under the impression we already paid for 45 Meg up/down under the clinton presidency and while the telco's have been taking tax money for this, they still haven't built out the infrastructure we should have had several years ago.

Anyone know more about this?

It was also my understanding that the National Information Infrastructure was a result of the High Performance computing act of 1991 under Clinton and Gore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Performance_Computing_Act_of_1991

So I have to ask. Why pay for more when we've been paying for it since 1991? I'm curious if other's can help me understand if I've misread what the act is supposed to do.