There’s glaciers, tortoises, and BT’s speed of execution. The snail-like pace of BT's move to a new television age is shown by its launch today of a TV service.
If your business had a line into almost every home and office in Britain, and technology came along to increase the capacity of that line by 100X, wouldn’t a light bulb have come on inside your brain with the thought: “I can send extra services down that line.”
The regulator’s restriction on BT providing extra services expired on January 1st 2001. Before then, it seems, nothing was done to prepare for a TV service because, when I phoned BT in January 2002 and asked when they’d have a TV service, I was told: "Sir Christopher Bland (BT’s Chairman) set up a working party in June (2001) to get the whole thing going - with his broadcasting background he's very hot on this topic”.
If the working party was set up six months after BT was allowed to provide TV services, it seems probable that nothing was done before January 2001 to prepare for the removal of the restriction on TV services.
And since the working party was set up in June 2001?
Gosh, it’s only December 2006 and already they’re launching the service.
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