Fascinating 27yr roll back. I love some of the old Tomorrow's World archives.
BT were slow to embrace the internet.
BT actually wanted to invest in a Fibre Optic network back in the 90's. It was Maggie Thatcher's government policies who scuppered those plans and wouldn't allow them to.
Whilst not full fibre, BT Wholesale was all set up to roll out both telephony and data 21CN when Ben Verwayen was at the helm in about 2006. They invested multi-millions in what back then what was relatively new WDM Fibre Optic backhauls and MSANs. The plan was to invest in an IP based Next Generation Network expected to cost £10 Billion.
iirc they only got about a dozen or so exchanges live before those plans were pulled too. I can't recall the exact reason why, but it was at the time when OFTEL (OFCOM) et al decided that BT had too much of a monopoly and needed to form an entirely separate company. So BT then spent multi-millions in forming Openreach and brand new livery for their staff, vans etc.
Even in the clip it mentions that BT were not allowed to invest in cable, yet plenty of other start up companies did (most eventually became Virgin Media). Makes you wonder where we could have been if it were not for government and regulatory authorities hadn't placed such strict legislation about what a monopoly could and couldn't do.
