From: ce11son@yahoo.ca

On Thu, 23 Apr 2015 01:49:43 +0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
 wrote:

>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.
>
A form of compulsory health insurance originally.

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