The 21st Century Window Tax for the Internet

In 1696, King William III imposed a tax on glass. Homes with more than ten windows were charged a levy. In reality, the tax was seen as deeply unfair—and, more importantly, entirely avoidable. Homeowners simply bricked up their windows to dodge it, leaving houses dark and gloomy for generations.

Fast forward to today, and we have a modern equivalent: a tax on glass fibre. The UK government levies a charge on firms based on the length of fibre optic cable they deploy. Like its 17th-century counterpart, this tax is both unfair and avoidable. But instead of bricking up windows, companies are simply choosing not to roll out fibre at all. And that hurts everyone.

When fibre is cheap and accessible, it powers the future. Faster broadband, better infrastructure, and more resilient networks become possible. Firms can invest in ultra-fast connectivity—tens or even hundreds of times faster than what most UK households currently have. Network providers can build better redundancy, meaning fewer outages, more business continuity options, and stronger digital infrastructure across the country.

The fibre tax puts all of this at risk. By making fibre unnecessarily expensive, the government is discouraging the rollout of next-generation broadband. That doesn’t just mean slower internet—it means a weaker, less competitive digital economy.

This tax also sends the wrong message to international firms looking to bring content and services to the UK. Global tech companies and network providers weigh up the costs of expansion carefully. If deploying fibre in the UK is disproportionately expensive, they will go elsewhere. This isn’t a hypothetical problem—it’s already happened. Over the past year, multiple projects that could have improved the UK's connectivity have been abandoned because the numbers simply didn’t stack up.

This morning, George Osborne appeared on BBC TV, declaring that advancing next-generation broadband was a government priority. If that’s true, then the first step must be repealing the fibre tax—our 21st-century window tax.

So far, the government’s focus has been on scrapping the much-criticised 50p per month broadband levy proposed in the flawed Digital Britain report. But repealing one tax while keeping another that’s just as damaging is hardly a victory.

With this tax in place, the UK is making itself uncompetitive in the global digital economy. Faster broadband isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity for businesses, innovation, and growth. If the government is serious about next-gen broadband, the fibre tax must go.

Because if we’ve learned anything from history, it’s that taxes designed to stifle progress never end well. Just ask the homeowners still living behind bricked-up windows.