How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
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How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
1–10 of 16 posts
Re: How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
#2Maybe someone can explain the decision in principle to me here, because I don't understand how the deliberate retardation of network infrastructure is beneficial to encouraging competition.
I get that the entry costs to the market would be higher for a new start up, but that seems irrelevant given the target competitors, and a silly bloody way of doing it anyway. But I'm genuinely curious to hear the other side of it?
Re: How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
#3Maybe someone can explain the decision in principle to me here, because I don't understand how the deliberate retardation of network infrastructure is beneficial to encouraging competition. I get that the entry costs to the market would be higher for a new start up, but that seems irrelevant given the target competitors, and a silly bloody way of doing it anyway. But I'm genuinely curious to hear the other side of it…
I remember conversations about this 15+ years ago. Opinion among my peers seemed to be that it was in order to prevent British Telecom monopolising the comms infrastructure.
Re: How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
#4Maybe someone can explain the decision in principle to me here, because I don't understand how the deliberate retardation of network infrastructure is beneficial to encouraging competition. I get that the entry costs to the market would be higher for a new start up, but that seems irrelevant given the target competitors, and a silly bloody way of doing it anyway. But I'm genuinely curious to hear the other side of it…
I remember conversations about this 15+ years ago. Opinion among my peers seemed to be that it was in order to prevent British Telecom monopolising the comms infrastructure.
Lucky they nipped that one in the bud, eh?
Re: How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember conversations about this 15+ years ago. Opinion among my peers seemed to be that it was in order to prevent British Telecom monopolising the comms infrastructure.
Lucky they nipped that one in the bud, eh?
Just think - if they hadn't, why, we could have BT being the majority provider of ADSL in the country and charging people £££ for the privilege!
(Note to non-UKians: BT do, in fact, control most of the ADSL provision in the country and are still a defacto monopoly.)
Re: How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
#6Maybe someone can explain the decision in principle to me here, because I don't understand how the deliberate retardation of network infrastructure is beneficial to encouraging competition. I get that the entry costs to the market would be higher for a new start up, but that seems irrelevant given the target competitors, and a silly bloody way of doing it anyway. But I'm genuinely curious to hear the other side of it…
If you want to take a cynical stance, you could look at it as deliberately introducing competition to an obvious natural monopoly, which pretty much guarantees an inefficient market and therefore monster profits.
Thatcher (and later Major) did the same in other places e.g. deregulating the City, privatising the railways. Pretty much the same story there, with monster profits and seriously degraded infrastructure.
If you are in the business of doing absolutely anything to maximise profit, then you need to be of the opinion that your changes are a good idea for the population as a whole, otherwise you'll feel guilty. The belief that competition always makes things better for everyone, regardless of the observed outcome, fits the bill here.
Re: How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lucky they nipped that one in the bud, eh?
Just think - if they hadn't, why, we could have BT being the majority provider of ADSL in the country and charging people £££ for the privilege! (Note to non-UKians: BT do, in fact, control most of the ADSL provision in the country and are still a defacto monopoly.)
Or if we want to go really outrageous, a division of BT still controlling literally every new home install of telephone lines, often with engineers not turning up, or not being trained to do the job they've been sent to!
(As above, this is actually the case. )
Re: How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
#8Maybe someone can explain the decision in principle to me here, because I don't understand how the deliberate retardation of network infrastructure is beneficial to encouraging competition. I get that the entry costs to the market would be higher for a new start up, but that seems irrelevant given the target competitors, and a silly bloody way of doing it anyway. But I'm genuinely curious to hear the other side of it…
If you want to take a cynical stance, you could look at it as deliberately introducing competition to an obvious natural monopoly, which pretty much guarantees an inefficient market and therefore monster profits. Thatcher (and later Major) did the same in other places e.g. deregulating the City, privatising the railways. Pretty much the same story there, with monster profits and seriously degraded infrastructure. If…
She wanted to encourage competition, but that competition never arrived, so we still have a shit infrastructure and an ineffective monopoly essentially?
Re: How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to take a cynical stance, you could look at it as deliberately introducing competition to an obvious natural monopoly, which pretty much guarantees an inefficient market and therefore monster profits. Thatcher (and later Major) did the same in other places e.g. deregulating the City, privatising the railways. Pretty much the same story there, with monster profits and seriously degraded infrastructure. If…
She wanted to encourage competition, but that competition never arrived, so we still have a shit infrastructure and an ineffective monopoly essentially?
Seems to normal with Infrastructure.
All want to use it, but noone wants to invest to build it.
On the other hand, there were those frequency auctions, where providers lost a fortune and mobile internet got really expensive.
Re: How Thatcher Killed UK Superfast Broadband
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember conversations about this 15+ years ago. Opinion among my peers seemed to be that it was in order to prevent British Telecom monopolising the comms infrastructure.
Lucky they nipped that one in the bud, eh?
I'm genuinely amazed that anyone still buys the argument that competition in a capitalist economy will improve quality. It does nothing but encourage corner-cutting, box-ticking, de-skilling of the workforce, and the extraction of revenue away from the electorate by monopolies who covertly cooperate to game the system. It demotivates, impoverishes, and homogenises. Truly dreadful.