Talk:List of historical British telcos

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100527143141/http://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/BTsHistory/History.htm to http://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/BTsHistory/History.htm

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Focus on BT
This article is entirely focused on BT. All companies are listed according to their relationship to BT. This causes all sorts of difficulties. Not every pre-nationalisation company survived till 1868 so they are not all "predecessors" of BT. In fact, none of them are directly ancestors of BT because they became part of the GPO, a government institution, not directly taken over by BT as a company. This view of British telco history comes from the BT marketing department, and it is a disservice to Wikipedia readers for us to uncritically repeat it. Cable & Wireless, in their day, were the world's largest multinational, but get only a mention as an "early competitor" of BT. C&W's predecessor companies are just as numerous and were directly taken over by C&W. None of them are listed here. We also don't have the cable manufacturing companies, which played a vital role. SpinningSpark 00:47, 23 March 2019 (UTC)