Tory deregulation

From the Guardian.

The Conservatives today claimed they were willing to loosen BT's grip on the local telephone network and use parts of the BBC licence fee to deliver "superfast" broadband to the majority of Britain's homes by 2017.

Using "market-based solutions" the party believes the UK can be the first leading European country to have speeds of "up to" 100 megabits per second (Mbps), the shadow chancellor George Osborne said. He said "the Conservatives would support changes to the regulatory ­framework", adding that private investors being allowed to pay for better cabling would encourage competition.

I wonder if the market based solutions will result in a field as competitive as the railways post privatisation? I wonder if logging on in the UK will be anything like getting a train in the early 1990s and I wonder if the companies are already producing equipment to keep the network free of leaves. If the network was deregulated, why would a private company want to supply phone/internet access to a tiny hamlet about 40 miles away from anywhere? That's right, they wouldn't.
But it's OK, because:

...the proposal to tax the BBC would benefit Rupert Murdoch's BskyB and the Tory donor Carphone Warehouse.

With, of course, a hat tip to everyones favourite DPM.

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