What will happen to the evil empire?

From the NZ Herald of 12 January:- "The Commerce Commission's Fair Trading Manager Graham Gill said while Telecom had co-operated in the investigation, the commission was becoming increasingly concerned at the number of occasions on which Telecom has acted in breach of the Fair Trading Act. He said since 2003 Telecom had been the subject of Fair Trading Act convictions, settlements or warnings on at least eight occasions."

"The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat, in order to attain domination"
~ US President Ronald Reagan

Although Reagan was referring to the then Soviet Union in 1981, he could easily have been referring to present day Telecon aka Telecom NZ. With the clear outburst of pent-up anger this week from the public about this organisation's behaviour, it is the opportune time for the Government to step in and dismember it legislatively. As we have commented in previous posts, this organisation has for more than 20 years been a big bullying monopoly, willing to extract from its customers (read victims) anything it has felt like charging them. And when competition began appearing on the scene it did everything it could to put obstacles in their way to preserve its monopoly. Effectively, Telecom has been an enemy of the free market, not just by its attacking competitors, but by its deceitful advertising and the various extra charges tacked onto its customers/victims' bills in small print.

Worst of all, Telecon has retarded technical development in this country by getting rid of most of its engineers and technicians and by spending as little as it possibly can on infrastructure.

It is clear that it must be split up and any key monopolistic parts of its infrastructure be put back into public ownership.