Alex Singleton | Journalist and political commentator

One of the most important pro-globalisation policies a country can enact is to allow competition in the telecoms sector. Africa is benefitting immensely from competing mobile phone networks, but landline services and internet connections still leave much to be desired. Britain’s 1984 privatisation of the state-run telecoms company has been a great blessing. We no longer have to wait months for a new telephone line. Competition has massively cut prices: I can call the US for little more than a penny.

The UK government introduced competition in an evolutionary fashion: firstly by allowing Mercury Communications to compete on long distance calls; users would dial a code before the number to be routed through Mercury’s network. Then it allowed cable companies to offer telephone lines which would connect to BT’s lines. More recently, “carrier pre-selection” (CPS) lets people route their calls through a multitude of service providers with all the magic happening at the telephone exchange.

The result of liberalisation is that prices have been dramatically cut, even for people who do nothing and stay with British Telecom. Calling overseas used to be prohibitively expensive; now it’s something people can afford to do every day. This is great for globalisation. Conversely, low quality, expensive, monopoly, state-run telecoms services are a barrier to trade. Trying to get through to people on landlines in poor countries can be a right royal pain, and poor quality communications infrastructure is hurting countries’ ability to get rich.