Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 21:15:55 -0500
To: [log in to unmask]
From: Bram Dov Abramson <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Hold the phone


>infrastructure investment (whether in telecommunication or other
things,
>eg transport, health etc.) for the common good, irrespective of its
>(perceived) profitability, has become something of the past, due to
the
>onslaught of marketist thinking (aka 'the One Idea System' ;-) Hence,
>land telephone lines are vanishing in Africa in favor of mobile
phones for
>the rich, state-run transport services are replaced by private
minibuses=
(at
>10 times the fare), government hospitals become death camps, as
private
>clinics mushroom etc etc. Some people take an optimistic view of this
>('liberates small scale entrepreneurship') but I think it's bunk -
most
>of the time. Deregulation and the 'withdrawal of the state' simply
means
>disengagement of responsability towards the majority of the people
being
>left to fend for themselves. Happens everywhere, but in some
countries
>of the South it can take very, very crude forms.

The very generalized critique of pens=E9e unique is one thing.  Here,
on the other hand, you're talking about the South and, from the sounds
of it, arguing that the developing country PTTs responsible for
building out main lines were once zealous, acting as the
representatives of an engaged state concerned with installing social
democracy; that under liberalization these apparently benevolent PTTs
-- strongly committed to investing in the country's telephone
infrastructure -- have been replaced with a proliferation of
market-oriented actors, and that that proliferation of actors has
resulted in a decreasing rate of growth for main lines and, more
generally, to narrower access to telecom services.

Seriously?  Cause, I know this may be surprising, but there are places
where the state disengaged its responsability toward the majority of
the people quite a while ago, and in ways better described by Chinua
Achebe than by Ignacio Ramonet.  No, things are not exactly rosy, but
it helps when you're allowed to put together a telephony project
without working for the government.

cheers
Bram

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