We're seeing different cultures at play in this discussion.
In Britain (and in most Commonwealth countries), government regulation is the way things get done. MacLeod speaks from this perspective. We've come to accept, albeit grudgingly, that there are times when our government says "You are all are gonna do it *THIS WAY* from now on, got it?". And we obey meekly, like sheep. That can be good. It can be bad, but it has benefits too.
For most of you (I'm assuming most of you), being Americans, the idea of government stepping in and telling an industry, or the public, how it should do business is tantamount to fascism. It's a very different cultural frame-work. I'm sure it all stems from all those 'Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death!' birth pangs.There's an innate sense of distrust of government regulation in America.
As a demonstration, it's like the whole discussion I remember we had on here a few years ago about measurement systems: here in our Commonwealth nations, we all switched to Metric because our governments told us to. Simple as that. In the USA, however, when the Federal government tried something similar in the 1970s, the general public told the government to shove their Metric system up their ass. That's the cultural difference I refer to.
And the change to metric was a good one, after all metric is all in standard maths, rather than base 16 for ounzes 16 oz=1lb, base 14 for lbs 14 lbs=1 stone, base 12 for inches 12 inches = 1 foot. As for F that makes even less sense. And yes if need be I can covert approximatly using mental arithmetic if I need to. But I have no problem if certain countries want to use a certain system all I ask is people specify the system they are using i.e. 40F, 40C.
But the UK government has set a Universal Service Commitment of at least 2Mbps, recent reports says its needs to be 10Mbps so they could increase the USC to 10Mbps.
And call me a cynic but all Governments should not be trusted.
I merely point out that, under our system, we barely have a choice at all in terms of stopping them from implementing whatever the hell they like, aside perhaps from complaining to our local MP and then kicking them to the curb at the next election. My impression has always been that under Westminster rules we're kind of resigned to that, whereas in America they're all still much more passionate about the whole "Don't Let The Bastards Tell Us What To Do!" thing.
