BT are a great example. Most of the deployment of System X, etc, used private money and in turn the deployment of 21CN and the cross over to all IP network has used private money.
Private companies invest in technology to drive efficiency. The public sector pontificate for a few years, eventually put out tenders, get ripped off wholesale by suppliers or have suppliers bid themselves into bankruptcy and finally deliver projects which fail to reach the original criteria, are late and are over budget at which point they just dip into the tax payer's pocket some more and the people whose project failed to deliver are congratulated and sent off to their next failure or take the job they were promised in return for favouring a supplier.
The private sector doesn't have politicians' whims to win elections to satisfy and doesn't have to deal with a self-serving civil service bureaucracy trying to justify their existence meddling in things. BT's efficiency cost jobs, jobs which may have caused a government a lot of issues had they been perceived as shedding them. Not to mention the horrific state of government procurement.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Traduk
Ignitionnet,
>>Also of note is that during the 30s the UK adopted a monetarist approach to recovering from economic problems and recovered far more quickly than Keynesian methodology allowed the US to.<<
In the 30's the USA reduced liquidity and slipped into a depression until they switched the liquidity back on. It took an electoral cycle before the incoming president took the economy on a 180 degree shift back to recovery.
Bernanke studied the cause and consequence of the depression and it is his declared intent to fight deflation which leads to depression.
The coalition have opted for an internal liquidity reduction in the hopes of Global growth stimulating private sector growth. To what extent the gamble pays off only time will tell but they are following a principle that failed abysmally for the USA.
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We've quite a different economic challenge to the US. Inflation there is quite tame, here not so much.
The USA is throwing phenomenal amounts of money at their economy not just in QE but stimulus and the results are debatable.
The UK did a couple of good things to stimulate our economy, the VAT cut and scrappage allowance were good things, sadly those appear to be over now and the taxes are wading in.
As you have said it's a liquidity reduction as it's not only the reduction of government spending, which is absolutely appropriate, but there are additional tax rises as well. We are a services based economy, services don't export too well, and it's bizarre that services that we can actually 'export' well, financial services, we're hamstringing ourselves and allowing the EU to finish the job.
The alternative is, of course, not an option as it's politically unpalatable. We'll finish this parliament with a massive state still and it'll just get grown again during the economy's healthier times to bribe the electorate. Meanwhile the public sector pension liabilities go up, PSBR remains unpleasant, and us, the welfare from cradle to the grave generations lap it up with no care of the amount of debt we're saddling the next generation with.
---------- Post added at 15:03 ---------- Previous post was at 15:00 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul M
Which is mostly related to the change in technology since they went private. Everyone is now on highly reliable digital exchanges (System X, AXE 10) - and the main switching hubs across the UK are all digitally interconnected now. The old Mechanical strowger exchanges needed far more manpower, and were much more prone to faults. The first electronic exchanges (TXE2, TXE4) were more reliable, but still prone to problems, and still required more manpower than digital. Even a lot of the old copper cable is now slowly being phased out in favour of optical, again, more reliable.
(Some of Nottinghams digital exchanges are now over 21 years old, I know, I help convert a fair few of them).
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How about the access network Paul? Exactly the same stuff is still in the ground and hasn't been phased out in favour of optics. There are no TPON deployments being done, the fibre is being laid next to, not as a substitution of, the copper network.