Government reveals superfast broadband plans

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11922424

> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11922424

Sounds to me as though they're serious about:-

Qoute :
"The government has earmarked £830m for the scheme, with some of this
money coming from funds given to the BBC to pay for the switch to
digital TV."

Both causing belt-tightening @ the Beeb, and using some money which has
already been budgeted for.

On Mon, 06 Dec 2010 08:17:34 +0000, Count de Monet <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11922424


Totally overshadowed by this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JpNravrwZc


--

Meanwhile, at the uk.telecom.broadband Job Justification Hearings, Count de
Monet chose the tried and tested strategy of:

> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11922424

So who's going to own the infrastructure that the license fee has been
diverted to? Is this basically just an £800M tax break for BT? Could be
worse - at least it hasn't gone to Vodafone!

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) ((E-Mail Removed))
21:34:44 up 1 day, 48 min, 6 users, load average: 0.00, 0.06, 0.35
"I am utterly appalled at how I have been treated like a criminal"
-- Andrew Crossley, ACS:Law, 13 August 2010

alexd wrote:
>Is this basically just an £800M tax break for BT?
Yes.

On 06/12/2010 22:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> alexd wrote:
>> Is this basically just an £800M tax break for BT?
> Yes.

It makes me sick. I think the best way forward is to follow Australia's
lead by properly breaking up BT and nationalizing the infrastructure.

"Count de Monet" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:idi66s$9ul$(E-Mail Removed)...
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11922424

More bullshit eh?

Mark wrote:
> On Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:20:39 +0000, Chris Hills <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>> On 06/12/2010 22:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> alexd wrote:
>>>> Is this basically just an £800M tax break for BT?
>>> Yes.
>> It makes me sick. I think the best way forward is to follow Australia's
>> lead by properly breaking up BT and nationalizing the infrastructure.
>
> Agreed. The infrastructure is far too expensive to allow for proper
> competition and a privately owned monopoly is far worse than a public
> one.

I am not sure I agree. What I do agree is that having an essentially
regulated infrastructure company owned by the same FSTE 100 parent as an
unregulated strictly for profit veryy unpleasant telecomms company is a
hard one to take.

I go for splitting off Openreach and BT wholesale, but not for
nationalisation.

we are gradually learning how to do this. Railtrack MKII or whatever it
is, is not perfect, but seems to be better than MkI & II or British Rail
or the old companies that preceded it, ever were.

On 08/12/2010 20:25, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> Mark wrote:
>> On Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:20:39 +0000, Chris Hills <(E-Mail Removed)>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 06/12/2010 22:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>> alexd wrote:
>>>>> Is this basically just an £800M tax break for BT?
>>>> Yes.
>>> It makes me sick. I think the best way forward is to follow Australia's
>>> lead by properly breaking up BT and nationalizing the infrastructure.
>>
>> Agreed. The infrastructure is far too expensive to allow for proper
>> competition and a privately owned monopoly is far worse than a public
>> one.
>
> I am not sure I agree. What I do agree is that having an essentially
> regulated infrastructure company owned by the same FSTE 100 parent as an
> unregulated strictly for profit veryy unpleasant telecomms company is a
> hard one to take.
>
> I go for splitting off Openreach and BT wholesale, but not for
> nationalisation.
>
> we are gradually learning how to do this. Railtrack MKII or whatever it
> is, is not perfect, but seems to be better than MkI & II or British Rail
> or the old companies that preceded it, ever were.

Yep - Network Rail.
To quote from their website:
"Network Rail is a “not for dividend� company and all our profits go
straight back into improving the railway."

A bit like Welsh Water:
"Welsh Water is owned by Glas Cymru, a single purpose company with no
shareholders and is run solely for the benefit of customers. The Glas
Cymru business model aims to reduce Welsh Water's asset financing cost,
the water industry’s single biggest cost."

These are both good examples of "halfway-houses" between nationalisation
and privatisation.

Even better, in my opinion, is the John Lewis method, whereby every
employee owns a bit of the company.

And all three of the above firms seem to be doing quite well. At least
as far as their customers are concerned.

Lesson learned: look after the customers and the employees and bugger
the greedy shareholders, whose logical aims are to maximise their
investment, increase prices, reduce service to a just-adequate level and
to squeeze employee costs through minmising wages, pensions, etc.

Christ, I'm sounding like a pinko commie bastard - who'd 'a thought it!

George

Meanwhile, at the uk.telecom.broadband Job Justification Hearings, George
Weston chose the tried and tested strategy of:

> Yep - Network Rail.
> To quote from their website:
> "Network Rail is a “not for dividend� company and all our profits go
> straight back into improving the railway."

> These are both good examples of "halfway-houses" between nationalisation
> and privatisation.

Network Rail is by any reasonable examination a public body yet it's exempt
from FOI requests, which isn't an example that should be copied. I would be
interested to know what the government wants to hide - £5bn a year is not a
trifling sum of money.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) ((E-Mail Removed))
23:02:41 up 58 min, 8 users, load average: 0.12, 0.13, 0.18
"I am utterly appalled at how I have been treated like a criminal"
-- Andrew Crossley, ACS:Law, 13 August 2010