Internet Licence?

[Lindseyman]

WI In the UK we didn't have lots of separate Internet Providers but just one?
For argument's sake BT or even with a far enough back POD the GPO (which used to run Britain's telephones). So by paying a Licence fee (as per Television) you could access the internet anywhere in the UK where there is a signal just by typing in your licence number? Could it work or would it just be GCHQ's fondest fantasy? I'm almost tempted to say this is ASB after Maggie but the licence system works for TV in the UK (unless you're a Murdoch and want the Beeb just to be like PBS).
Any comments?

 

[Devvy]

I'm not sure this is really possible. Firstly; for sake of clarity, could you specify if you mean the Internet or the World Wide Web?

In either case generally speaking though, I'm not sure how this would work. The only way I could see this working is with a license to connect to services outside the UK; the notion of the EU with free markets would then blow this right out.

Politically, I can't see it happening though. UK is strong on free market, industry led solutions. The internet & www were commercially driven "products", and have grown & evolved with no state involvement; I can't see the UK wanting to put a commercial cap on it. What product/service would such a license fee fund that can't be commercially funded? What is the actual product you are charging to access as well - the internet/www isn't a product that a government/company can claim to be able to sell, as by nature it's just a set of interconnected services rather then one entity.

The TV license funds the BBC which as a service with no advertising and aims to be a neutral news provider, which clearly can't take funding from elsewhere without compromising it's values; where an internet license would go I don't know.

 

[King Thomas]

I thought you were suggesting that everyone should have to have a license to use the Internet, and spammers, trolls, stalkers and sex offenders would have theirs taken away and be forbidden to use the Internet. And I was going to say that such a thing was rather authoritarian and hard to police properly.

 

[Fardell]

The TV license funds the BBC which as a service with no advertising and aims to be a neutral news provider, which clearly can't take funding from elsewhere without compromising it's values; where an internet license would go I don't know.

The Internet license could pay for the BBC's net/web presence.

 

[thevaliant]

I think it would need a POD way back in the 1970s to both get rid of Thatcher (indeed, probably the Conservatives generally around then) and the EEC.

The butterflies alone from having the UK out of the EU, and no Thatcher (with only maybe short 'consensus' Conservative governments occassionally in the 1980s or 1990s) would generate so many other butterflies, the UK of this 2015 would look radically different to OTL anyway.

 

[Devvy]

The Internet license could pay for the BBC's net/web presence.

Fair; but a bit over the top.

BBC Online services were requiring around £150 million before recent cuts. There are 25 million'ish TV license subscribers, so assuming that each household has to pay for an internet license (as opposed to an internet license per person), then £8 per year would cover it. £10 a year would expand services, and send Sky/ITV ballistic.

 

[Lindseyman]

The licence fee wouldn't go to the BBC but to the state internet provider (eg GPO). As I said in the OP this idea is almost ASB to anyone who hadn't formed political opinions before Maggie but it's not that hard to imagine if she hadn't risen to power and the post-war consensus continued in some form or other.

 

[Thande]

France's Minitel is probably the closest this came to reality in OTL.

 

[Osakadave]

I thought you were suggesting that everyone should have to have a license to use the Internet, and spammers, trolls, stalkers and sex offenders would have theirs taken away and be forbidden to use the Internet. And I was going to say that such a thing was rather authoritarian and hard to police properly.

Saw this and thought the same thing, although minus the bit about spammers and trolls.

 

[BlueTrousers]

The Internet license could pay for the BBC's net/web presence.

Not so far from what the BBC wants to do - they want to go after people who use iPlayer but don't have a traditional TV by making households pay the TV Licence if they have an internet connection.

 

[Lindseyman]

I was actually thinking that ITTL (if I ever get around to writing it ) that the Internet Licence could actually be part of the Phone Bill as to get access , even nowadays somebody has to have a router plumbed into a phone line. It would be even easier to implement in the days of dial up connection to the net.