Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 29 May 91 10:00:02 GMT From: Martin Baines Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Are Telco Profits Too Large? Reply-To: Martin.Baines@uk.sun.com Message-ID: Organization: Sun Microsystems Ltd Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 409, Message 9 of 10 Lines: 52 In article , motcid!ashbya@uunet.uu.net (Adam J. Ashby) writes: > In article , bmontgom@hvtvm4.vnet.ibm. > com writes: >> Food for thought: British Telecom announced yesterday profits of 95 >> pounds a second ie annual profits of 3000 billion pounds ... leading >> to comments from competitors that BT charges too much for use of its >> local lines. I don't know how this compares to US telecom operators, >> but I think it could be described as somewhat excessive. > A couple of points to mention here ... > 1) I somewhat doubt the validity of your figures - especially as I > remember not long ago everyone was aghast at BT making one million > pounds a day - or one third of one billion pounds. You may doubt them, but they are true! Mind you (according to BT adverts) they reinvest #88 per minute of that. > 2) Is that a 'British' billion (1x10E12) or an 'American' billion > (1x10E9)?? Unfortunately for the English language, since Nigel Lawson started using the American Billion for reporting the budget in the early '80s the American Billion has taken over here when refering to money. A sad day: what was wrong with the (correct) term milliad? > 3) Describing it as excessive is very subjective - it wouldn't seem so > excessive if you were a shareholder, would it?? As a share holder I quite agree. Unfortuanately there are still some solicalist mined individuals in the UK who believe all profit is evil and privatisation was the work of the devil! Of course these are the same people no doubt who would like to go back to the '70s when the old GPO took 18 months to install my parents phone line *and* succeeded in lossing money on a monopoly service and hence needed tax money (top rate 98% !!!) to make up the difference. "You might say that, but I couldn't possibly comment" Martin Baines, Sales Support Manager, Sun Microsystems Ltd, 306 Science Park, Cambridge, CB4 4WG, UK Phone Email UK: 0223 420421 JANET: Martin.Baines@uk.co.sun International: +44 223 420421 Other UK: Martin.Baines@sun.co.uk Internet: Martin.Baines@UK.sun.com