Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: achtung on May 26, 2007, 10:10:30 am
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Would nationalization of telecoms in the United States be a good idea? If that sounds iffy, what about state ownership of the lines? Do you think that would allow more competition? Right now, companies do not have to lease their lines for any price, which I believe hinders competition. This whole idea came to mind because it's such an AT&T/Bell world right now that improvement isn't coming along as fast as it is in other nations. Considering other utilities such as electricity and water are under tight government control, why not telecoms?
Let's hear some opinions.
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As a comparison, I can tell you that Telecom Italia, the Italian national telephone company, was until some years ago the only telephone company in Italy. Since it had the monopoly, they quite disregarded maintenance. Some time ago we had a problem and we remained without telephone for a month. We also tried to call them via mobile phone, but nobody responded. Now that there are some private companies, almost everybody cancelled his contract with Telecom, and now Telecom is on the edge of bankrupcy, and the politicians even wonder why that's happening!
I recently heard that AT&T wants to buy Telecom Italia. Good luck to them :p
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That's the problem in the U.S. though. It's a monopoly. Maybe switching the lines over to public domain would help.
hmmm