On 01/01/12 22:49, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
No not really. DB is run like a normal company with the goal to make a
profit. The fact that it is (still?) owned by the government appears
not to change this fact.

The idea that nationalised companies shouldn't make a profit is an
insidious one which resulted in the collapse of most nationalised
industries in the UK and elsewhere. Worker ownership of the means of
production doesn't work if /all/ of them need a subsidy.

Ian

On 02/01/12 00:40, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
Industries should not be nationalised, your bringing this up is a
strawman. The idea is that certain basic services such as traffic
systems, communication and the energy grids should be run by the
government, but not the entire economy.

I wholly agree that these things (with the exception of
communication[1]) are better organised for and by society as a whole.
However, the profitability issue is a separate one: there is no
particular reason why electricity supply, for example should make a loss.

Why, after all, should those who don't use much electricty subsidise
those who do? The same goes for railways.

Ian

[1] State control of communication is a scary concept. Look at SOPA in
the US for an example of where it can lead. Anyway, phone services in
the UK are far, far better and far, far cheaper than when the Post
Office had a monopoly.

On 02/01/2012 00:46, The Real Doctor wrote:

Anyway, phone services in
the UK are far, far better and far, far cheaper than when the Post
Office had a monopoly.

Not /quite/ a monopoly.... one place had (and still has) a separate
provider of fern curls.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

In article ,
Arthur Figgis wrote:
On 02/01/2012 00:46, The Real Doctor wrote:

Anyway, phone services in
the UK are far, far better and far, far cheaper than when the Post
Office had a monopoly.

Not /quite/ a monopoly.... one place had (and still has) a separate
provider of fern curls.

Do you mean Hurl ?

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 29th March 2010)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

On Tue, 3 Jan 2012 21:48:00 +0000 (UTC), Nick Leverton
wrote:

In article ,
Arthur Figgis wrote:
On 02/01/2012 00:46, The Real Doctor wrote:

Anyway, phone services in
the UK are far, far better and far, far cheaper than when the Post
Office had a monopoly.

Much of that is down to changes in the technology; e.g. international
telephone calls are not cheaper due to a change in ownership.

Not /quite/ a monopoly.... one place had (and still has) a separate
provider of fern curls.

Do you mean Hurl ?

Nick

On Jan 3, 10:25*pm, Charles Ellson wrote:

Much of that is down to changes in the technology; e.g. international
telephone calls are not cheaper due to a change in ownership.

Actually, international telephone calls are a prime example of
something that really _is_ cheaper when state monopoly telecos are
broken up or otherwise lose their monopoly. In many casees, state
owned telcos take assorted measures to discourage or prohibit VoIP
international calls, because they regard international dialling as
either a luxury or a distress purchase, and therefore one they can use
to cross-subsidise into domestic services. Part of that obviously
relates to surveillance: the sort of countries that still have
nationalised monopoly telcos tend to have a pretty relaxed view on
privacy. But it's not as simple as that, and monopoly telcos squeal
that loss of their international business will impact on their their
domestic business, which clearly implies that there's a disparity in
margin.

The GPO/POT accounts are too opaque to figure out if this was
happening prior to privatisation in the UK, but elderly telecoms
policy people of my (and, I suspect, Roland's) acquaintance reckon it
was definitely the case that the nationalised telco over-recovered
costs on international calls and under-recovered them from domestic,
which was why they howled so loudly when the indirect international
carriers arrived.

ian

Am 04.01.2012 00:05, schrieb ian batten:
Much of that is down to changes in the technology; e.g. international
telephone calls are not cheaper due to a change in ownership.
Actually, international telephone calls are a prime example of
something that really_is_ cheaper when state monopoly telecos are
broken up or otherwise lose their monopoly.

Why then do international phone companies like Vodafone, T-Mobile or
Orange charge huge amounts for calls from one of their national networks
to another of their national networks?

Why had the European Commission to intervene against the market
forces to drive down the roaming charges and charges for international
calls?

(I had found out, to my surprise, that an SMS from Paris to Germany
did cost me less than an SMS from Germany to Germany! Thanks to the
intervention of the European Commission ordering lower international
tariffs).


Cheers,
L.W.

In message , at 22:25:24 on
Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Charles Ellson remarked:
Anyway, phone services in
the UK are far, far better and far, far cheaper than when the Post
Office had a monopoly.

Much of that is down to changes in the technology; e.g. international
telephone calls are not cheaper due to a change in ownership.

Most of the fall in costs has been due to competition, and facilitated
by new technology. Where there's no competition, the new technology is
still expensive.
--
Roland Perry

Am 04.01.2012 10:14, schrieb Roland Perry:
Most of the fall in costs has been due to competition, and facilitated
by new technology. Where there's no competition, the new technology is
still expensive.

Nonsense.

Am 03.01.2012 23:25, schrieb Charles Ellson:
Anyway, phone services in
the UK are far, far better and far, far cheaper than when the Post
Office had a monopoly.

Much of that is down to changes in the technology; e.g. international
telephone calls are not cheaper due to a change in ownership.

I dare say that _all_ of the price drops was due to a change in
technology (computerization of switches, optical fibers, better channel
division). There are not price drops any more, even though the
competition got stiffer, because there is no more such a leap in
technology.


Cheers,
L.W.