Avanti Communications Saw Limited Broadband Tax Effect

22nd Jun 2010 14:58

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Broadband-by-satellite company Avanti Communications Group PLC (AVN.LN) said Tuesday while it welcomes the U.K. government's decision to scrap plans to impose a landline duty, it was unlikely to have hurt the company's financial performance. "From Avanti's perspective we weren't likely to be that affected by whether a broadband tax was implemented or whether market forces were left to make it happen," a company spokesman said. The firm sells broadband services to telecoms companies across Europe, allowing them to deliver broadband to inaccessible rural areas. The previous U.K. Labour government had proposed to charge every home and business with a phone line GBP6 a year to fund the rollout of broadband across the U.K. But new coalition government Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who presented an emergency budget Tuesday, said while investment is needed in the U.K.'s digital infrastructure, the previous government's landline duty was an "archaic" way of achieving this. "I am happy to be able to abolish this new duty before it is even introduced," he said. Avanti's spokesman said: "We're comfortable with whatever because the company has a solution for rural broadband that works." -By Hannah Benjamin, Dow Jones Newswires; 44-20-7842-9298; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 22, 2010 09:58 ET (13:58 GMT)