The third force operating on a telecommunications network is always money. Economic factors include the growth of markets, the availability of finance and investment, and the returns available to operators and investors.
There are other economic factors at work as well - the place of the telecommunications industry within the manufacturing sector, and the implications that has for prosperity and employment.
In Britain, a vast state industry developed around telecommunications. At one stage, the telephone service employed around 1% of the whole of Britain's working population - about 250,000 people.
From 1911 onwards, the introduction of new technology into the network was...