The chairman of British Telecom, Iain Vallance, told telecommunications users at the pre-duopoly review conference that he deplores the attitude that Telecom is national asset. In a heated statement, Vallance refuted the idea of British Telecom as some kind of quasi-national company and in answer to an appeal from Ferranti Creditphone to broaden the cape of Telecom’s services said BT is not here to help the rest of the UK fleet. He firmly stated that the national network belongs to British Telecom shareholders and added that the sooner the government got rid of its remaining 49% in BT the better while they hold that it is fair game to look at BT as something which has a social obligation which is greater than any other large company. The government – and anyone else – could not have it both ways… either British Telecom is a private company or a public one. As a private company, seeking the most profitable returns, Vallance defended Telecom’s decision to go for corporations and information-intensive individuals in global markets, third world countries and ordinary customers are important to us, but growth will come from those customers in those markets. Vallance said that his main concern about the regulators was that they did not license unfair competition for British Telecom by opening up the UK market to foreign competitors, while overseas markets, particularly in Europe, were closed to competition from BT. It would be ironic if the regulators took a Little Englander approach to competition by regulating here without looking at markets around the world. The UK, would be staked out as easy meat by the world’s predators. Vallance described moves in Europe as an unenthusiastic shuffle towards competition and attacked the North American cable market as seemingly open, but in reality closed to foreign investors – while US phone companies entered the UK telephony market through their investments in cable television companies. Vallance insisted that if the Secretary of State adopted British Telecom’s proposols, published last we and ordinary customers are important to us, but growth will come from those customers in those markets. Vallance said that his main concern about the regulators was that they did not license unfair competition for British Telecom by opening up the UK market to foreign competitors, while overseas markets, particularly in Europe, were closed to competition from BT. It would be ironic if the regulators took a Little Englander approach to competition by regulating here without looking at markets around the world. The UK, would be staked out as easy meat by the world’s predators. Vallance described moves in Europe as an unenthusiastic shuffle towards competition and attacked the North American cable market as seemingly open, but in reality closed to foreign investors – while US phone companies entered the UK telephony market through their investments in cable television companies. Vallance insisted that if the Secretary of State adopted British Telecom’s proposols, published last week (CI 1,540), the UK would be the most open market in the world and that was OK – I am very happy to have competition with Baby Bells – with the proviso that there is not too much feather-bedding.
