How Thatcher killed the UK's superfast broadband before it even existed
Bet this will go down well on here then
Edit: at this point I'm just trolling, I just find it funny how ranty people get about *anything* being publicly owned
(, Fri 15 Nov 2019, 19:38, Reply)
Yes, it was misguided governments interfering in markets
Which is why it is doubly stupid to nationalise Openreach now. You can say with absolute certainty that the government will f*ck it up. They simply don't understand markets and why government intervention, especially threats of nationalisation, make companies avoid investment.
Governments need to set the rules and then keep their noses out unless someone breaks the rules.
In any case, who really wants their broadband to be supplied by the state? Of course you feel good about it when it is cuddly Corbyn, but what if things change and it's a party you don't like in charge? This site would be a casualty for starters...
(, Sat 16 Nov 2019, 8:52, Reply)
Re-writing history....
BT are horrendously monopolistic and have relentlessly held back our UK infrastructure. Back in the day (20 years) if you wanted digital telecoms it was ISDN or you had to stump up for an E1 / T1 link. I remember being quoted 1500 a month for a 1Mb/sec data link. BT had no interest in broadband whatsoever as ISDN was so lucrative.
So Thatcher had a point about creating competition, BT has no history whatsoever of being first in line to put in state-of-the-art public infrastructure. In my experience of telecom installs back then BT did everything they could to slow down what you could get to force in horrendously expensive solutions.
Hey but maybe this is right, a state-run telecoms operator would be all generous and Corbyn is the man...
(, Sat 16 Nov 2019, 13:00, Reply)
Back in the day, 20 years ago,
I was already on the waiting list for ADSL, which was rolled out to me 19 years ago by BT Openworld. Installation was free.
(, Sat 16 Nov 2019, 21:36, Reply)