32 ms·

BT is a private company these days, has been for a long time, how does Britain as whole foot the bill?

by epo 15y ago

DrJokepu 15y ago
I think an argument could be made (and I don't necessarily agree with it) that since a very large portion of BT's revenues originate from the UK and BT has a very large presence on the UK telecommunications market, it will be ultimately British consumers who will end up paying for such a loss, one way or other.
corin_ 15y ago
They're a private company, but they are still a monopoly with a universal service obligation and highly regulated by Ofcom. So while we (the British public) might not have to pay for their mistakes with our taxes - though worth noting that, not unlike banks, the Government would have no choice but to bail BT out if it was ever needed - any money they lose from this they regain from their customers, which are the public. And the monopoly ensures most people will pay.
willyt 15y ago
BT is a state regulated monopoly in the UK for several of the tiers of the telecommunications infrastructure. The vast majority of IP packets from domestic and SME's will pas through their infrastructure at some point. Simplistically, if their costs go up then presumably their wholesale costs and everyone's phone bills go up too. In practice their accounts are heavily scrutinised (at great cost to the taxpayer) so there is probably some kind of complicated regulatory mechanism that prevents this. Quick rant as an aside: Utilities and infrastructure tend to be natural monopolies as it costs so much to get them up and running nobody wants to do it twice. Competition in infrastructure provision for any given service of this nature always seems to end up being a wasteful and bureaucratic mess of government regulated artificially created 'competition' between a few companies. For more UK examples see British Airports Authority, Network Rail, Electricity, Gas etc. Infrastructure should allow one country to compete effectively with others by improving internal efficiency. Perhaps they should be independent democratically controlled state entities; every citizen gets a share.

BT is a private company these days, has been for a long time, how does Britain as whole foot the bill?

by epo 15y ago

BT is a private company these days, has been for a long time, how does Britain as whole foot the bill?

I think an argument could be made (and I don't necessarily agree with it) that since a very large portion of BT's revenues originate from the UK and BT has a very large presence on the UK telecommunications market, it will be ultimately British consumers who will end up paying for such a loss, one way or other.

corin_ 15y ago

They're a private company, but they are still a monopoly with a universal service obligation and highly regulated by Ofcom. So while we (the British public) might not have to pay for their mistakes with our taxes - though worth noting that, not unlike banks, the Government would have no choice but to bail BT out if it was ever needed - any money they lose from this they regain from their customers, which are the public. And the monopoly ensures most people will pay.

willyt 15y ago

BT is a state regulated monopoly in the UK for several of the tiers of the telecommunications infrastructure. The vast majority of IP packets from domestic and SME's will pas through their infrastructure at some point. Simplistically, if their costs go up then presumably their wholesale costs and everyone's phone bills go up too. In practice their accounts are heavily scrutinised (at great cost to the taxpayer) so there is probably some kind of complicated regulatory mechanism that prevents this. Quick rant as an aside: Utilities and infrastructure tend to be natural monopolies as it costs so much to get them up and running nobody wants to do it twice. Competition in infrastructure provision for any given service of this nature always seems to end up being a wasteful and bureaucratic mess of government regulated artificially created 'competition' between a few companies. For more UK examples see British Airports Authority, Network Rail, Electricity, Gas etc. Infrastructure should allow one country to compete effectively with others by improving internal efficiency. Perhaps they should be independent democratically controlled state entities; every citizen gets a share.