Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 11 May 2001, 4:00 PM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Friday 11/05/2001
And talking of uncertain telecomms commerce, the big restructure is afoot at BT. Foreign investments? For sale. BT Wireless (that's Cellnet)? An independent company -- and, effectively, for sale. Leaving? "The profitable wireline cash cow".
That'll be the profitable wireline cash cow that's browsing in the same pasture as the infinitely more attractive Telewest, then. The large, slow cow that's been contemplatively chewing the cud while all around it the pasture's been ripped up and replaced by intensively farmed GM crops. Wireless may be shaky at the moment, but I know of nobody who thinks it won't continue to be hugely important -- perhaps overridingly so -- over the next decade. Will paying off this debt so eviscerate BT that it won't have anything left for the future?
Before you buy into that rights issue, try saying the simple phrase "long term strategy" to yourself three times in the same sentence as "British Telecommunications". I'm not sure I can manage it, yet.
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