From: ahk@chinet.com

Charles Ellson  wrote:
>"Adam H. Kerman"  wrote:
>>Charles Ellson  wrote:
>>>"Adam H. Kerman"  wrote:
>>>>Stephen Sprunk  wrote:
>>>>>On 22-Apr-15 09:16, John Levine wrote:

>>>>>>>>It's just like the stupidity of our CDMA/TDMA/iDEN war while the
>>>>>>>>world standardized on GSM.  Despite its flaws, GSM is far
>>>>>>>>superior to all of the US-developed systems _and_ costs less due
>>>>>>>>to economy of scale, which is why all US carriers are finally
>>>>>>>>moving that way.

>>>>>>>Oh, c'mon, GSM came later. And it was mostly Europe that decided to
>>>>>>>use an international standards-making process because of the
>>>>>>>relatively small countries; I don't recall any other part of the
>>>>>>>world being involved.

>>>>>>Quite right.  It was developed by ETSI, where E stands for European.

>>>>>It was developed by CEPT and later transferred to ETSI.

>>>>That would be the consortium of European post offices, not a world-wide
>>>>standards-making process, so your earlier statement was wrong. Who else
>>>>would have developed it? Under European socialism, the post office was
>>>>put in charge of the telephone infrastructure.

>>>In most cases long before socialism was a working (FSVO "working")
>>>concept. Communications were generally kept within control of
>>>government agencies from long ago, the most convenient department
>>>tending to be the national Post Office which already dealt with
>>>letters and later usually inherited telegraphs followed by telephones.
>>>Describing the governments at the relevant times as "socialist" would
>>>in most cases be a bit of a joke.

>>Both telegraph and telephone began as utilities owned by shareholders;
>>neither was begun by government.

>This was in a European context ("Under European socialism" above).
>Even if private, the operations would often be subject to a government
>monopoly. In the UK, the GPO claimed a monopoly on telegraph services
>and this was confirmed by statute in 1869, telephones being later
>ruled to be included within telegraphs, the last non-municipal system
>being taken over in 1912; none of this involved anything recognisable
>as "socialism". A possibly unintended consequence was that failing
>systems which would otherwise have closed down were taken over and
>kept in use as part of the expanding national network.

I have no idea why not, then. Coulda sworn I've heard the government
single-payer system for health care referred to as "socialized medicine",
so what else could it be? It ain't capitalism.

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