That telephone monopoly was privatised - and later dragged their heels on rolling out broadband because ISDN was so profitable, causing untold damage to the UK tech economy as the country fell behind on connectivity.
It’s a great parable of badly-managed state-run monopoly vs badly-managed privatised monopoly.
If the Tory government hadn’t reserved the market for cable TV exclusively for two US companies, NTL and Telewest, BT would have rolled out fibre to the home in 1990.
I don’t think I blame BT for not wanting to invest in a market it was barred from making a profit in. This is the result of heavy handed local regulation strangling a national incumbent for the sake of foreign interests.
At any point other competitors could have made the same investment but didn’t want to either until relatively recently.
Well one of these things happened and the other one was a hypothetical? It seems very wishful thinking to assume it just would've happen if the politics of the 70s had some how limped into the 80s
