Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDon
The argument is about the cost of laying the actual cable for a network that reaches everywhere in the UK. It's that part that costs the money, far far more than what they've invested in broadband.
If you already have the cables laid to reach the homes it's then trivial to invest in broadband, as you don't have to engage in a massive road digging program and instead just have to upgrade the tech in your existing exchanges.
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But the government didnt give BT away they SOLD it to the stock market. They SOLD the exchanges, the copper, the telegraph poles, the monopoly etc. So the fact that the network was build with public funds carrys no weight in the argument as the public have been reimbersed for that investment.
The opening up of BT's network has nothing todo (officially) with it being build with public funds but purly about proventing a company abusing its monoply position. Which is the position were now in with sky (and fyi sky wasbuild with public money, ASTRA (the company that ownes the sattelites and (some of) the uplink stations, bascally the expensive infrastructure that sky uses) was funded by the eu
