In reply to a post by ccxo:

So where do you propose to find the billions needed to renationalise Openreach from BT, as the current goverment does not have the funding to do so.

When Stephen Byers' renationalised Railtrack, the write down on Railtrack stock ensured that the acquisition cost for HMG was zero!

BT Group plc has been living on state subsidies for years. Around £500m of state funds have been paid to date to bankroll the Openreach FTTC rollout programme. That public subsidy should be converted into a state holding in BT stock, so we get to see a financial return on our investment.

BT's market capitalisation is £18bn today.. At least £500m of BT stock is rightfully ours as taxpayers, as are all the dividends on that shareholding. Yet BT's 2011 end-of-year share dividend was a bumper 9% on the previous year. That's not cricket and it's definitely not free market economics. When a company is surviving on state handouts, it shouldn't be paying a penny in dividends to private investors.

In theory, HMG could impose any rules it wants to accelerate FTTC/P rollout. Since Openreach cannot source City funding within a reasonable time-frame to rollout a fibre programme to our towns, the state should step in. The Government should fund the rollout itself as part of a Public Works Programme, using a public credit system.

It's not that long ago when the state routinely raised money in that way for important infrastructure work. My grandparents recall investing in public works programmes as late as the 1970s. State funding was raised through the issuance of municipal bonds for specific purposes.. the building of new schools, or hospitals etc. It was a great boost for communitarianism as well. "This hospital built through public subscription.."

Today, public credit could fund an accelerated FTTC rollout to every town and village in Blighty. The obstacle is the bankrupt City of London which cannot deliver the financing but refuses to move aside and let the public take over.

Where there's a will there's a way!

cheers, a

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/02/...

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You cite privatised companies as being disasters for the consumer, then include the non-privatised Post Office for being a disaster as well.

The Royal Mail is being deliberately wrecked so that its privatisation will initially deliver improvements. It's a sleight of hand.

We're told, for example, that letter post is being delivered at a loss by Royal Mail, and naturally only privatisation can solve that. Yet that's completely fraudulent. The Government is entirely to blame for any losses since the state regulator, Ofcom, and previously Postcomm, controls the price of Royal Mail stamps. Whether a letter stamp should cost 10p more or 20p, 30p, or whatever, that's all it would take to halt those losses. And Royal Mail has some of the lowest domestic postal charges in Europe which is obviously economically unsound. It's being crashed on purpose in readiness for City of London swindling.

cheers, a

Edited by deleted (Tue 27-Mar-12 00:03:13)

I have great respect for your technical ability, but that post is utter tripe.

Please review what happened to the Post Office between 1997 and 2010. Nearly all of what I listed a few minutes ago.

Wasn't that a non-Tory government? Or does my memory fail me? .

And do you seriously believe that increasing the price of postage would improve Post Office revenue? Wouldn't it just accelerate the move to email messages and Jacquie Lawson cards, and even more use of the cheaper private parcel delivery companies by internet-based suppliers? At least some still use Royal Mail for small items.

I wonder how many people under the age of 30 ever buy a postage stamp other than for business mail or to send cards to ageing relatives?

As for OfCom being an evil invention of the government, I know Wikip can be inaccurate but I think this is probably correct:-

Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002 and received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003.

The solution appears to be revolution . Peaceful and bloodless of course. All politicians are against the people.

Now then: French Revolution; Russian Revolution; Iranian Revolution. The common people really did well out of those, didn't they? Putin and the Chinese leader are well-know democrats, as are the leaders of Egypt and North Korea.

The world is not simple.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

VDSL if REIN is bad may be worse than ADSL2+, there is potential for this to be the case due to the frequencies used.

So if your problems are more than just a little bit of wiring, and more a broad spectrum RFI interference from the airport then only solution that would be immune enough is full fibre

Anything would help Andrew I'm sure. My line is stable at the moment but should it still play up zen will ask for the line to be moved to another port hopefully on a new card

Just a couple of non related questions, i keep hearing the term backfill ? does it refer to patching up empty ducts? and why can't we look at a thread in the traditional way? numbered pages.

Backfill is where Openreach go back to a exchange area and enable cabs in later phases, this happens quite alot espeically where demand can be shown in a area.

Before we go any further, just thought i'd look on my local councils site, to see any plans for work being done since i last checked. i was quite surprised.
http://www.kirklees.gov.uk/maps/googlemap.asp?Option...
click on the roadsign near twelth avenue.

the work is being done exactly where P27... my cabinet is located, unless they've decided to do VM a favour and upgrade their cabinet.

Edited by deleted (Tue 27-Mar-12 00:58:25)

The article you link which is 2008 shows how out of date the idea of public credit since it has not happened.

You need to go and look at the BDUK funding project as you seem to miss understand the prodject, since all the funding has not gone to BT or even yet been awarded in winning tenders.

Would also look at what amount of investment the BT group has invested into their FTTC/FTTP rollout (£2.5 billion), as how the 500 million is funding the rollout shows you have not looked into the project.

How is the city of london bankrupt and not able to provide the finance, since BT is able itself to raise the investment it needs.

Edited by deleted (Tue 27-Mar-12 03:04:27)

In reply to a post by creakycopperline:

...... and why can't we look at a thread in the traditional way? numbered pages.

That just goes to show how little you look into things, try pressing the FLAT button top right of the page. There's also an option in My Home.

In reply to a post by creakycopperline:

why can't we look at a thread in the traditional way? numbered pages.

As RONSKI says. If you do it through the settings in My Home you can also alter the number of parent posts per page and the number per page. I have both set to 99. Collapsed threads, and Active in the last week.

I also recommend using "Favourite Threads" in My Home, rather than the Forum Index, as I'm sure there are a huge number of forums you are not interested in. Hugely speeds things up.

Be careful when using Flat Mode to use the Reply button against the post you are replying to, not the one against the last one on the page! Using the correct one maintains the threaded structure for those using it, and also stops you getting irate replies from people you have replied to in error. They have good reason, as there is also an option to receive an email notification of replies to your posts, so if someone has that in use there are two results of you using the wrong one:-

1) Someone gets an email saying they have a reply, which is incorrect and annoying because your post is not of relevance to theirs or to them;
2) The person you are addressing may not get the notification they expect and so not even see your reply for days or weeks.

Re "the traditional way", I think you will find Threaded mode is the traditional way, still preferred by many. Flat (paged) mode is a newish idea.
_{Edit - typo.}

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 27-Mar-12 09:33:52)