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This is crazy. I never realised this. Here in the UK I switch ISPs regularly to take advantage of new customer discounts, cashback incentives etc. I'd never dre

This is crazy. I never realised this. Here in the UK I switch ISPs regularly to take advantage of new customer discounts, cashback incentives etc. I'd never dream of sticking with an ISP longer than I contractually had to.

vertex-four 10y ago
I'm in the UK too, I just have American friends... and it's a crying shame that they had the opportunity to have the same system as us - when the Bell breakup happened - but instead split up the company geographically.
- rayiner 10y ago
  That's not true. AT&T was broken up around the same time British Telecom was privatized, both in the early 1980s. The difference was that British Telecom had been a government organ (part of the Post Office until 1981), while AT&T had always been a private corporation. When BT was privitized, the government had enormous latitude in imposing conditions on investors purchasing the assets. The U.S. government was not in a similar position. An antitrust violation doesn't give the government the right to just do whatever it wants with the company's assets. The best course of action on the part of the U.S. likely would've been to permit the AT&T monopoly to continue. AT&T's regulatory treatment at the time permitted it to set prices to ensure a reasonable return on its capital investment. That had the effect of creating an enormous incentive on AT&T's part to invest a lot in its network (the more capital investment, the more profits). As a result, the U.S. telephone system was extremely high quality for its time.
  - chengiz 10y ago
    Your second paragraph flies directly in the face of everything that is right about capitalism. As a simple example, long distance call rates dropped by 40-50% after the breakup with no difference in quality.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      Capitalism will give you what the market wants, not what a snob would consider "good." E.g. popular music and movies suck, but that's because that's what the market wants. Phone call quality has gone to shit compared to the POTS network of yore, but again the market doesn't care. Keeping AT&T would've given people what folks on HN want: a wired network that was expensive built gold-plated.

vertex-four 10y ago

I'm in the UK too, I just have American friends... and it's a crying shame that they had the opportunity to have the same system as us - when the Bell breakup happened - but instead split up the company geographically.

rayiner 10y ago
That's not true. AT&T was broken up around the same time British Telecom was privatized, both in the early 1980s. The difference was that British Telecom had been a government organ (part of the Post Office until 1981), while AT&T had always been a private corporation. When BT was privitized, the government had enormous latitude in imposing conditions on investors purchasing the assets. The U.S. government was not in a similar position. An antitrust violation doesn't give the government the right to just do whatever it wants with the company's assets. The best course of action on the part of the U.S. likely would've been to permit the AT&T monopoly to continue. AT&T's regulatory treatment at the time permitted it to set prices to ensure a reasonable return on its capital investment. That had the effect of creating an enormous incentive on AT&T's part to invest a lot in its network (the more capital investment, the more profits). As a result, the U.S. telephone system was extremely high quality for its time.
- chengiz 10y ago
  Your second paragraph flies directly in the face of everything that is right about capitalism. As a simple example, long distance call rates dropped by 40-50% after the breakup with no difference in quality.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Capitalism will give you what the market wants, not what a snob would consider "good." E.g. popular music and movies suck, but that's because that's what the market wants. Phone call quality has gone to shit compared to the POTS network of yore, but again the market doesn't care. Keeping AT&T would've given people what folks on HN want: a wired network that was expensive built gold-plated.