"Lüko Willms" wrote in message

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.

Both domestic and international calls from the UK are now more or less
free, but only if you use carriers other than BT. If those companies
were not allowed to function, the price drops would not have happened.
BT was compelled to allow such calls to be dialled from BT lines; it
certainly wouldn't have done so voluntarily. So, yes, it was enforced
competition, and not just technology that have made phone calls much
cheaper in the UK than they would have been had BT retained its
monopoly. For one thing, if it still had its monopoly, it would have
been slower to invest in those new technologies.