SilentCallsVictim wrote on Feb 23
rd, 2009 at 2:35pm:
There may be some of us who anticipate a future government that will reverse the current longstanding trend towards using markets under light-touch regulation to deliver benefits to the disgracefully conflated concept of the citizen-consumer.
I have to say that of those likely to form such a government, it is that currently in power that walks and talks with the most authoritarian waddle and quack. It has however failed to take all the High Street banks into full public ownership and so must been seen as being unlikley to re-nationalise the telcomms industry. The idea of a party that is in favour of stronger regulation of commerce, adding to "the burden of regulation", having any part in forming a government in the foreseeable future seems to be something that we can only laugh about.
(I profess no party loyalty.)
The economic disappointments of the last few months seem to have caused some people to forget when it was we saw actual competition introduced into retail markets for telecoms and other utilities. Merely privatising the monopolies was not the whole job, especially not when user tariffs had to be shoved up 20 to 40% to help attract investors to the flotations.
Less than a decade ago, all UK national calls cost 8 pence a minute, and home consumers had no choice other than BT, which had been so stuck in the mud its engineers had a difficult time convincing the accountants that there was a business case for broadband. Of course prices have dropped with increases in capacity, but it might not have happened so fast without a big kick
What this might have to do with 18866 connection charges or other disputes, I can't guess
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Ofcom Duck Complaint Re Hidden 18866 Price Change (Read 17,521 times)
