On Monday, June 22, 2020 at 8:00:22 PM UTC+2, Alain Fournier wrote:   
   > On Jun/22/2020 at 02:58, frank.scrooby@gmail.com wrote :   
   > >    
   > > Now if the local telecomm provider (read: government enforced monopoly)   
   would just do their jobs and fix our landline....   
   >    
   > ???   
   >    
   > I'm curious here. Where are you hailing from? Which country imposes such    
   > horrible hardship on its citizens?   
      
   South Africa, a semi-government owned company called TELKOM has the monopoly   
   on all cable based telecomms. There was another company whose name escapes me   
   right now but they went belly up when ESKOM's problems started a decade ago.   
   In 1996 the new(ish)    
   government promised to dismantle this legacy of apartheid ASAP and usher in a   
   new era of prosperity. I guess they figured out that seeing as the Cabinet   
   gets to (indirectly) appoint the leadership of state-owned companies that   
   keeping TELKOM was a good    
   way to keep friends and supports gainfully employed.   
      
   We have a similar situation with ESKOM, the electricity provider monopoly, who   
   has major problems keeping the lights on. Their cabinet appointed leadership   
   can't figure out why 40-year old power stations keep breaking down, or why   
   coal suppliers refuse    
   to supply coal when they haven't been paid in three months, and whose   
   leadership gets hysterical when they can't figure out WHY the company has a   
   25% decline in income during a period when the parts of the country that   
   actually pay for their electricity    
   were being turned off for 25% of the time. Oh and the new power station (was   
   supposed to be the biggest, most efficient, least polluting coal burning power   
   station in the Southern Hemisphere) is 10 X over budget, 10 years later, and   
   all work done so far    
   has been found to be defective, or sub-standard. Estimates are that it will be   
   20 X over budget and won't be fully operation before 2040.   
      
   We also had a government owned iron and steel monopoly, ISKOR, which except   
   for some minor low volume specialist metallurgy has gone the way of the   
   dinosaurs. The state-owned national airline SAA hasn't paid its staff in 3   
   months, and before that they    
   weren't on full pay anyway. It has just received another billion dollar rescue   
   package. We have a government owned monopoly on rail transport, and they can't   
   even get the trains to run on time, or prevent the passenger trains from being   
   torched in arson    
   attacks. Our ports are run another monopoly which makes getting your good   
   through customs an exercise in frustration.   
      
   And yes, 2G is scheduled to go away here soon too. The rights to those wave   
   lengths of that transmission space have already been sold. The wireless   
   operators don't really mind, because that means they get to sell everyone who   
   wants to stay connected a 4G    
   or LTE device.   
      
   >    
   >    
   > Alain Fournier   
      
      
   Sorry for the long winded reply. An update on my landline connection. The   
   connection is restored but I still can't use it because the modem's software   
   can't reset the password used by the last device. I got this far by waiting   
   patiently on the phone for    
   just over 75 minutes yesterday.   
      
   Be grateful for what you have over in the real world.   
      
   Regards   
   Frank   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)