A broadband license-he's nicked my idea

What do people think of Peter Preston's idea in the Observer this morning?

He proposes that there should be a broadband license to fund journalism.

When I read this,I thought that gosh he has pinched my idea.

This was one of the ideas that came out of the "radio show" that we put together at Uclan last month on the theme of who will pay for journalism.

My view was that one of the few organisations to have made monety out of Web 2.0 are the internet providers.So why should they not pay for the capacity that they use.

Preston doesn't agree necessarily that the providers should pay.Instead he says

If you have a broadband link - the fundamental enabler - you pay for it with a licence fee. Your internet provider already debits directly away: add a modest extra sum - perhaps £1 a week - to that deduction as the cost of public service information on the net. Much of the BBC's own £145m web budget would then come from this pot. The providers take a share for collection and for investing in super-fast broadband. Then the £500m or more that's left goes to help pay for the most threatened public service: the news.