More on Free broadband

One of the allegedly glaringly popular promises in the last Labour manifesto was the promise of free broadband. I wrote about it a couple of times and decided that though it was desirable, the failure to socialise it both within the movement and society as a whole allowed the promise to be undermined by questions of cost. I concluded the article above by asking “why not free water?”. One of the answers to that is that much government business, which it requires those most likely to not have the internet requires its use, on the one hand, recording business activity and on the other claiming benefits and maybe equally importantly writing to one’s MP or Council. The idea came from two sources, one of them the London CWU who issued a pamphlet, calling for broader public ownership of the telco and postal services on the grounds that private/market ownership was wasteful of wealth and resources, has delayed the adoption of superfast broadband, caused an investment famine and led to a pursuit of short term fashion & profit rather than investing in infrastructure for long term aggregate growth. The Executive Summary is reproduced below/overleaf. …

Telecommunications, the case for public ownership

• The telecommunications industry is a natural monopoly. The current
  regulatory model of liberalisation and competition is wasteful and
  unnecessary.
• The regulation of telecoms firms since privatisation has led to an
  investment ‘famine’ and the occasional ‘feast’ that severely limits the
  development of telecoms infrastructure for the benefit of all customers.
• The rigged competitive model that has been the basis for regulation in
  the sector since privatisation is in fact a façade behind which mega profits
  are made by the major firms dividing up the market between them whilst
  customers and workers lose out.
• Since privatisation in 1984 union membership density in telecoms has
  declined, and so has the job security, terms and conditions and access to
  training of workers in the industry. These trends are detrimental to an
  efficient telecoms service.
• Rational planning, organisation and democratic control of the postal
  and telecoms industries under public ownership can facilitate effective
  investment in universal access to superfast broadband and promote social
  inclusion.
• Public ownership would allow the criteria for policy decisions on telecoms
  development to be the public good, rather than by the dictates of a market
  system based on short term profits whether from transient ‘content’
  fashions or ‘quick fix’ technological solutions.
• Public ownership of telecoms can provide environmental improvements,
  stimulate industrial growth and increase investment in wider economic
  regeneration and growth in the UK along egalitarian lines – in the interests
  of the many and not the private gain of the few.
• If the CWU, along with other affiliated unions, campaigned for public
  ownership of telecommunications and post to become Labour Party policy
  and be included as a commitment in the manifesto for the next election it
  would be a vote winner.