The Sin Bin • Re: General Election 8th June
Backwoodsman wrote:
You are hoping that they would be more efficient, it's doubtful that they would be more efficient. Unfortunately I am old enough to remember the company which is now British telecom.
To have a land line telephone you had to wait at least three months and more in some cases. The main reason was lack of competition.
The government poured millions into state owned industries, most of it wasted. Don't think for one moment I am ignoring the private sector as they can be just as incompetent. Step forward British airways and take a bow. But the big difference is by the nature of competition ,companies have to perform or they go bust .
If you look at the fierce competition between the low cost airlines, Ryan air , jet 2 , etc etc if you time your booking correctly you can fly across Europe cheaply.
I am in the process of contacting sky as I think I am paying too much. Last time rang them up I pointed out to them how much I was paying for Netflix and amazon compared with sky. I received a substantial reduction in costs for a year. If I don't get the same response with sky I will close the account.
Yet with the bbc which is deteriorating year on year, I have to pay my license fee whether I like it or not.
As someone who has worked in telecoms for over 20 years. It can still take many months to install lines.
There is also now a vast web of bureaucracy involved in installing or repairing kit due to the various interconnects between all the different telecoms companies. Each have their own demarcation points with their own engineers.
At the time of privatisation the UK had the worlds most advanced telecoms infrastructure, we were installing the worlds first digital telephone exchanges and were world leaders in technology, thanks to British tech companies like GEC, Ferranti, Plessey etc. The kit was built to last or what is now marketed as Military grade standard. We had the fore runner to the internet called PRESTEL. Only France had anything better MINITEL.
Move forward to today and the UK has a middle of the road telecoms infrastructure wholly reliant on foreign sourced kit, which is built to commercial standards rather than military grade. BT despite making vast profits beg the government for hand outs to upgrade their network so that it is fit for the 21st century. Whole areas of the UK have substandard internet connectivity and telecoms infrastructure, for example its only in the last few months that BT has upgraded to IPV6, other companies like Virgin still dont support it.
Statistics: Posted by The Chair Maker — Fri Jun 02, 2017 9:07 pm