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It's hard to measure this. British Telecom lost its monopoly around the same time it was privatised. Is today's (very competitive) telecommunications market mo

It's hard to measure this. British Telecom lost its monopoly around the same time it was privatised. Is today's (very competitive) telecommunications market more a result of privatisation or of the loss of BT's monopoly? Another way to look at it would be, are BT's customers better off now, than when it was a government company?

arethuza 11mo ago
I would say BT got worse immediately after privatisation and now have got better - largely I suspect due to competition.
- exasperaited 11mo ago
  Post-privatisation, Bonfield-era BT really was an abusive monopoly. I do not think the problems have gone away; dealing with OpenReach is very often as kafkaesque as it would have been.
  - arethuza 11mo ago
    Oh yeah - OpenReach is a bit of nightmare, but less of a nightmare than some energy suppliers I can mention...
nyreed 11mo ago
BT was deep into preparations for a nationwide fiber rollout at the time of privatisation in the early 80s. The project was cancelled, the fledgling factories equipment and expertise were instead exported to South Korea, enabling their widespread fiber penetrance. That delayed fiber rollout in the UK by decades. Was that a success? Could be they were too early to justify the cost? But without someone pushing ahead, who develops the technology?
- panick21_ 11mo ago
  Do you have some source on this, sounds interesting. It could of course also have just been a failure if tried to early. So we should just assume this would have worked out perfectly.
  - FreezingKeeper 11mo ago
    https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784 https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost...
- qcnguy 11mo ago
  It was that kind of delusional decision making that justified the privatization in the first place. Rolling out fiber nationwide in a world where the web had only just been invented and everywhere else in the world was connected via modems would have been catastrophically expensive and supplied bandwidth nobody would have been able to use. The idea the internet could have skipped straight from 33kbaud to fiber speeds is idiotic to anyone who remembers the state of the internet at that time. Most servers were not connected to the internet via fiber.
  - n4r9 11mo ago
    Unwittingly a brilliant demonstration of how short-term capitalistic behaviour hamstrings society. Japan, Korea and Hong Kong are way ahead of the UK and much of Europe precisely because of the lack of insight and vision reflected in your post.
    - qcnguy 11mo ago
      Ahead in what sense? More successful internet startups or tech economy? I don't think so, but that's how such buildouts were pitched as justified.
      - n4r9 11mo ago
        Ahead in internet speed...
        qcnguy 11mo ago
        Which is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself... UAE has higher median home bandwidth than the USA but nobody is claiming UAE has somehow uniquely benefited from that.
        n4r9 11mo ago
        You're not making much sense. Faster internet speeds are obviously good for society, all other things being equal.
n4r9 11mo ago
It's hard to tell with counterfactuals like that. One factor to bear in mind is that BT was close to rolling out nationwide fibre in the early 90's [0]. Would it have made more sense to decouple infrastructure and service, or would that have led to a nightmare like we have with the trains? [0] https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784 https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost...
fy20 11mo ago
Not directly from privatisation, but in 2006 BT was forced to split the infrastructure part of their business into a separate company (OpenReach). They were forced to allow other providers to use their infrastructure, which during the broadband-era led to pretty healthy competition. I'd say the issues today (fragmented services offerings, high prices, low speeds) are more due to under investment in the infrastructure (keeping copper for too long) - which could have just as easily happened if it was government run.

arethuza 11mo ago

I would say BT got worse immediately after privatisation and now have got better - largely I suspect due to competition.

exasperaited 11mo ago
Post-privatisation, Bonfield-era BT really was an abusive monopoly. I do not think the problems have gone away; dealing with OpenReach is very often as kafkaesque as it would have been.
- arethuza 11mo ago
  Oh yeah - OpenReach is a bit of nightmare, but less of a nightmare than some energy suppliers I can mention...

nyreed 11mo ago

BT was deep into preparations for a nationwide fiber rollout at the time of privatisation in the early 80s. The project was cancelled, the fledgling factories equipment and expertise were instead exported to South Korea, enabling their widespread fiber penetrance. That delayed fiber rollout in the UK by decades. Was that a success? Could be they were too early to justify the cost? But without someone pushing ahead, who develops the technology?

panick21_ 11mo ago
Do you have some source on this, sounds interesting. It could of course also have just been a failure if tried to early. So we should just assume this would have worked out perfectly.
- FreezingKeeper 11mo ago
  https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784 https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost...
qcnguy 11mo ago
It was that kind of delusional decision making that justified the privatization in the first place. Rolling out fiber nationwide in a world where the web had only just been invented and everywhere else in the world was connected via modems would have been catastrophically expensive and supplied bandwidth nobody would have been able to use. The idea the internet could have skipped straight from 33kbaud to fiber speeds is idiotic to anyone who remembers the state of the internet at that time. Most servers were not connected to the internet via fiber.
- n4r9 11mo ago
  Unwittingly a brilliant demonstration of how short-term capitalistic behaviour hamstrings society. Japan, Korea and Hong Kong are way ahead of the UK and much of Europe precisely because of the lack of insight and vision reflected in your post.
  - qcnguy 11mo ago
    Ahead in what sense? More successful internet startups or tech economy? I don't think so, but that's how such buildouts were pitched as justified.
    - n4r9 11mo ago
      Ahead in internet speed...
      - qcnguy 11mo ago
        Which is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself... UAE has higher median home bandwidth than the USA but nobody is claiming UAE has somehow uniquely benefited from that.
        n4r9 11mo ago
        You're not making much sense. Faster internet speeds are obviously good for society, all other things being equal.

n4r9 11mo ago

It's hard to tell with counterfactuals like that. One factor to bear in mind is that BT was close to rolling out nationwide fibre in the early 90's [0]. Would it have made more sense to decouple infrastructure and service, or would that have led to a nightmare like we have with the trains? [0] https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784 https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost...

fy20 11mo ago

Not directly from privatisation, but in 2006 BT was forced to split the infrastructure part of their business into a separate company (OpenReach). They were forced to allow other providers to use their infrastructure, which during the broadband-era led to pretty healthy competition. I'd say the issues today (fragmented services offerings, high prices, low speeds) are more due to under investment in the infrastructure (keeping copper for too long) - which could have just as easily happened if it was government run.