Little in telecommunications can happen in complete isolation from the rest of the world. By definition, the way a country runs its telecommunications network depends on its need for overseas connections, and its place in the wider, global telecoms world. Technologically, industrially and commercially, the way telecommunications developed in the UK was shaped by what was happening in the rest of the world.
It is easy to forget that our telecommunications network was founded over a century ago, when Britain ruled an empire covering more than one quarter of the word's land surface.
Having done much to invent telecommunications, the British rather tended to assume their system was automatically the best. The easy assumptions of technical and commercial leadership were not seriously challenged until ...