The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Post Office to resell BT broadband

Karim Bourouba

Come on now 

It takes the Royal Mail on average 3 days to deliver a first class letter from one part of Edinburgh to another.

And even then, it will all turn up at one in the afternoon.

Lets just hope this venture doesnt suffer from the same, how shall I put it? - ineptitude.

James Penketh

A little bit harsh. 

You have to remember that the post office used to lead the world in communications technology.

They introduced telegraph services in Britain in1870, and phone services in 1912. They used to be responsible for Britain's entire phone network until 1981, when BT was demerged from the Post Office.

And, didn't they also discover RADAR, while trying a shortwave radio thingamajig. (Technical term.)

Anonymous Coward

Nope 

Actually, radar was invented and developed by the research establishment at Great Malvern, Worcestershire.

The research establishments are now QinetiQ.

Anonymous Coward

What do the Post Office and BT have in common? 

Well, if you include PlusNet in the BT offering, they both don't seem to be very good at delivering..

Anonymous Coward

Lost emails 

So will I have to go round to my neighbours house to find my lost emails then?

And would I have to pay for special delivery for an email to be delivered some time in the next 24 hours, or pay an £8 handling fee to receive international emails?

Gilbert Wham

SWITCHES! 

Best. Subheader. Ever. Dunno about radar, but didn't one of the GPO's boffins come up with vital bits of the first computers at bletchley?

NB, plz to read 'first (computers at bletchley) not (first computers) at bletchley. If you see what i mean...

simon

Tommy Flowers 

Tommy Flowers MBE was a Post Office Exchange engineer who invented the Colossus electronic computer to decrypt German messages, unfortunatly he couldn't tell anyone under the official sectrects act, so in the intervening 30 years, the yanks told the world they were the first.