A bit of basic research would help the credibility of your post. The GPO (a branch of the civil service) ceased to exist in 1969. The Post Office (a statutory corporation) took on responsibility for telecommunications from that point.

Whether or not a state-owned organisation would have invested so heavily in new technology and, at least as importantly, reformed the workforce is, to put it mildly, a moot point. The history of nationalised industries in the UK is not a good one. Many that were inefficient, outdated, had poor industrial relations and survived on a diet of state subsidy and

Under the Post Office, the telephone network was already way behind that in many comparable countries (although many of those were also handicapped

As for the comparison made with Railtrack, this is ridiculous. OpenReach is not loss making and it cannot be forced into administration in the way that was done with Railtrack. It cannot thus just be picked up for trivial amounts of money. A full market valuation would have to be paid. it should also be remembered that Railtrack has £34bn (of government-backed debt) on its books which is now officially recognised as part of the national debt.

We might also consider the Royal Mail. Because of the failure of that organisation to make changes in the face of changing technology and markets, it reached the position where it was not only loss making, but was unable to fund the (£10bn) pension deficit. So in this case, the pension fund liability (£38bn) has been explicitly been taken on by the government (unlike the BT pension fund deficit of £7bn which the company is responsible for and only becomes a national liability should the company go into liquidation). In the unlikely event that OpenReach was to be nationalised, the great majority of the pension fund liability would go with it (as most of the pensioners would have been employed in the equivalent part of the business past).

The freeing of telecommunications from state control across the world has been one of the great success stories. This issue was far from confined to the UK, and much of the flowering of new technology and services can be put down to private innovation and enterprise. Governments are well placed to run things which don't work well in market economies (like social services or school education). They are generally pretty poor in markets where innovation and adaptation to markets are important. They tend to become prisoners of their own workforces and internal vested interests without the financial discipline imposed by business competition. Of course there are areas of private industry where there are barriers to competition (cost of entry to markets etc.), and that's where regulation is required. Hence Ofcom. The history is that governments are much more inclined to impose demanding regulatory requirements on external organisations than on parts of their own.

In reply to a post by alexatkin:

What people seem to forget when slamming the GPO is that a LOT of the improvements that came since BT are thanks to modern technology. It's foolish to argue that they wouldn't have happened had the GPO remained.

Very true. And the public infrastructure of the GPO looted through Privatisation was in pretty good shape. Though BT has since woefully neglected that plant. In pursuit of profit alone, denying us timely upgrades to modern technologies, when the opportunities and needs arise.

The GPO was a trail-blazer of its time. Take for example the advancements made in exchange switching gear in the days of the GPO. Late-1970s, its System X digital switches were being showcased around the world. By early 1980s, the GPO was stripping out the antiquated and fault-prone mechanical Strowger switches from exchanges across Britain. Yet it wasn't until 1990(!) - a full six years after Privatisation - that the last Strowger was finally ditched by mean-minded BT. From day one, BT plc was a tight-arsed outfit. Same story too for the fibre-backhauls, the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH); the so-called SONET rings. BT's investment in fibre backhaul came some 10 years later than in comparable OECD countries! Thanks again to that penny-pinching mindset behind privatisation.

Echo all that with our crumbling aluminium lines. They were installed by the GPO in the 1970s - as a temporary substitute for copper. At the time, commodity speculators had created a copper scarcity hoax to ramp the metal price. It was either succumb to that extortion racket, or source alternatives to copper. The GPO plumped sensibly for the latter. Back then, aluminium lines were not an issue. The network was almost exclusively voice telephony; and voiceband only needs a channel of some 4kHz bandwidth. However, the attenuation profile of aluminium - gauge for gauge - is much less forgiving than copper. Our comms have since gone digital with ever greater needs for channel bandwidth (17MHz currently). Aluminium lines are consequently no longer fit for purpose. Growing very brittle with age, and highly reactive to oxygen, they are also very fault-prone.

You'd think by now that BT would have stripped-out all that troublesome aluminium from 40 years ago, to finally drag the infrastructure into the 21st century. But, nah! No chance! Instead, peddling any excuse not to. Since BT's flotation, its priority has always been about maximizing every goddamn penny in shareholder "value". Scummy rogue outfit.

In reply to a post by alexatkin:

Its also not uncommon for BT to take a week to fix a broken wire TODAY, particularly if its in the exchange and in any way related to broadband. So I'm unconvinced that things would be any worse.

Too true again. Even installations of new lines are taking an eternity TODAY with BT. The Financial Times reported Friday - ("Ofcom tells BT its rivals need better superfast broadband access"; May 15):

Openreach is the division that oversees BT's network on behalf of competing providers. Since 2011, the average time between a customer�s order and the line being ready has increased from 40 to 46 working days, Ofcom found.

An average wait time of 46 working days for a new line is over two months! Pathetic! It was never like that with the GPO. And that two month wait is for new leased lines for businesses. Residential customers will be waiting even longer.

In reply to a post by alexatkin:

Switching to a pure fibre-based infrastructure would be the best for the people, if the infrastructure is also OWNED by the people, isn't it logic to suggest we would have a large scale roll out of FTTH by now?

The same argument was made for rail, claiming it was a shambles in public hands - but has it really gotten any better despite STILL demanding handouts of public money?

Worst case scenario, I would rather be paying for [censored] infrastructure that are paying their taxes and keeping their money in the country, than the same infrastructure where its lining some greedy sods pockets, evading taxes in foreign bank accounts.

Sure. BT's slithery shareholders will never cough-up for nationwide FTTH. They've even called for abolishing the Universal Service Obligation (for voice telephony), as it's costing them too much! Nationwide rollout of FTTH ain't never going to happen, not while Openreach remains in private hands. BT plc has neither the cash nor the commitment, nor even the expertise these days to deliver anything so ambitious.

Bringing fibre to every home will require a huge Public Works program, of the type that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt prescribed in his New Deal program. An extraordinary era of economic development that overnight lifted America from its chronic bankruptcy of the 1930s Depression. A program funded through an economic policy of issuing Public Credit, to invest directly in critical public infrastructure. Boosting national productivity and our skillbase, and providing jobs for millions.

Contrary to the nonsense said elsewhere, Railtrack / NetworkRail is an excellent example of a re-nationalisation. Offering us a valuable blueprint for bringing Openreach back into public ownership, too. Railtrack was marketized in a similar way to Openreach. Based too on a public-accounts scam. With no direct relationship nor contract with the consumer. Reliant instead on massive state-subsidies, and the "regulated" revenues that it gouged in track access fees from the Train Operating Companies (TOCs). That same "free market" sham of privatisation is exactly how BT operates its own Openreach monopoly today.

To renationalise Openreach, its bankruptcy must be engineered first. By axing those public subsidies (BDUK); by exploiting Ofcom's "margin squeeze" investigation to impose crippling regulation, turning those eye-watering profits into crushing losses; and by imposing "conditionalities" on Openreach; conditionalities which subsequently are impossible to fulfil for lack of funds. In essence, deliberately bankrupting it. That's exactly how Transport Secretary, Stephen Byers got Railtrack back on the public books, where it is now properly financed and maintained.

The question is whether Sharon White, the new Ofcom chief, can grow the balls that Byers grew? Or, coming from a Treasury background, will she forever be looking towards the City for her prompts on regulatory policy? We shall see.

Meanwhile, industry continues its demands for spinning-off Openreach from the rest of BT Group. With the current CEO of TalkTalk, Baroness Diana "Dido" Harding of Winscombe in the County of Dorset renewing those calls.

(( Excuse the digression: Dido is eldest grandchild of Field Marshal John Harding, former chairman of Plessey, the telco-kit/weapons multinational. It was Field Marshal John Harding and General Frank Kitson who were behind the "Mau-Mau" gang-countergang insurgencies in 1950s Kenya; orchestrating false-flag terror attacks to maintain British colonial rule. A policy pursued to this day in Ireland and elsewhere. ))

Baroness Harding spoke Thursday to the Financial Times ("TalkTalk in discussions over rolling out ultrafast broadband"; May 14):

Ms Harding renewed a call for Ofcom to consider making BT split the Openreach division that controls the national fixed line network. Ofcom is starting a once-in-a-decade review of the British telecoms market, which will consider the future of Openreach among other issues in the sector.

�Openreach would be a massively better company [split from BT]. It would have a greater incentive to drive prices down [and] have the balance sheet itself to invest in the network," [she said].

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Edited by deleted (Mon 18-May-15 02:02:00)

Post deleted by MrSaffron

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 17-May-15 22:24:50)

An extended article on BT from FT:

Strategy in action: the reinvention of BT

Post deleted by MrSaffron

Edited by deleted (Wed 20-May-15 05:43:59)

Posts removed because of the content breaking our rules http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/faq_english.php#rules particularly the 'Inappropriate or Offensive Language'

Discussions of a company and the pros and cons are allowed, but keep to the facts and avoid language that may be considered offensive if you want the post to remain.

New BT report sets out ambitious goals to 2020 - The Guardian article

http://www.btplc.com/Betterfuture/BetterFutureReport/ - direct link to the report

Edited by deleted (Thu 21-May-15 12:10:04)

I think all of BDUK deployment is hauwei, as by that time BT had realised ECI was junk.

I partially agree with you, BT need to think of their shareholders plus have the huge pension pot to fund. Deployment of true fibre is not in their interests, they will spend the absolute minimum possible for as long as possible.

To say the state cannot afford such a thing is of course nonsense, the state has been voluntarily spending in the form of HS2 and tax cuts/writeoffs. But you wont get this government even considering buying openreach, they are about reducing the state not increasing it.

Note the rail line system only works how it is due to state subsidies. So those who think state involvement breaks things, look at that.

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

t's troubling that there are still "free market" adherents here, arguing for Openreach to remain a wholly private-monopoly. Rather than returning it to public ownership, where it can contribute properly to the public purse, and the national economy. Where it can operate without making huge distributions to shadowy shareholders secreted in the Seychelles.

I am one of those "shadowy shareholders", but I live in Lancashire. Do I need to move to the Seychelles?

Also as a shareholder how do I get these "huge distributions" from BT? At the moment BT shares are giving me a dividend that shows approx. 2.9% return on my investment. Did I miss filling in a form to get "huge distributions"?

Edited by deleted (Sun 24-May-15 13:47:58)

Thanks MrSaffron for cleaning-up Tommy's tasteless smut, and for keeping this a family-friendly forum. Your efforts don't go unnoticed. An OBE (at the very least) can't be far away.

ThinkBroadband is an oasis of common decency amidst the desert of filth out there. For that very reason I had to leave another broadband forum - which shall remain nameless. They were openly boasting about their latest porn finds, in glorious technicolor. TalkTalk's adult filter is good but it can only protect us from so much. C'mon guys, is nowhere sacrosanct these days? I really do despair. Who wants to read about "body parts" ("both male and female"), and what you can do with them, over breakfast?! I struggled to keep my Guinness down; I really did. Maybe we can start a petition to get that Lady Doodah what runs TalkTalk to crank-up her smut-filters yet again?

Cheers Edwin

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Edited by deleted (Thu 28-May-15 13:04:42)