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History
A brief overview of how we got here
1982
January - BT began to sell telephones and install 'plug in' master sockets (as opposed to hard-wired installations).
February - The Mercury consortium received a licence to build and operate an independent network to compete across the full range of telecoms services.
June - BT telephone suppliers were permitted to sell in competition to BT.
July - The Government published a White Paper (Cm8610) proposing the sale of 51% of British Telecom and the creation of Oftel as the regulatory body.
1983
February - The Government accepted the recommendations of a report by Professor Stephen Littlechild to limit British Telecom's main price increases by RPI-X%. The formula was set at RPI-3% for the first five years of privatisation.
April - Mercury launched its first telecoms services in the City of London.
May - Licences were granted to Cellnet and Vodafone to provide national cellular radio networks.
July - The Telecommunications Bill was reintroduced. The Bill allowed for the selling of BT and setting up of Oftel.
November - Minister for Information Technology Kenneth Baker set out the 'duopoly' policy limiting the number of long-distance fixed-link operators to two - British Telecom and Mercury - for seven years. (Kingston upon Hull City Council would continue to supply the service in the Hull area.) He also announced further liberalisation in equipment supply and maintenance.
1984
April - The Telecommunications Bill received royal assent on 12 April.
June - British Telecom's and Kingston-upon-Hull City Council's licences were published.
July - Professor Bryan Carsberg was appointed as Director General of Telecommunications.
August - Oftel was officially created on 1 August. That month BT became a public limited company.
October - A joint IBM/British Telecom proposal (known as JOVE) to run a managed data network was refused on the advice of the Director General because of the dominant position such a grouping would have occupied in the market.
November - 51% of BT shares were sold to the public - a total of 3,012 million ordinary shares. The purchase price was 130p and the offer was 3.2 times oversubscribed.
1985
January - BT's monopoly on the supply and maintenance of the prime (first) telephone ended.
The two cellular operators, Cellnet and Vodafone, began commercial service. Later in the year the operators were issued with revised 25-year licences.
1994
July - ACC, WorldCom, COLT, MFS, Energis, Telewest, Videotron and Nynex granted licences to operate.
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It took 12 years to provide more than one competitor to BT's monopoly. Tim Glynn, Adodo's Managing Director joined the industry in late 1994. Tina Tiik, Adodo's Customer Service Manager, joined him in 1996. Since then many companies have come and gone and the market has changed enormously. There are now over 400 resellers and 300 licenced operators listed on the Oftel website.
The telecommunications and IT industries are merging, creating a 'converged' industry. Adodo was formed in 2002 to provide customers with clarity of purpose in this muddled world of communications. We won't have all the answers immediately, but together with our partners we design, build and deliver solutions that meet business needs as they arise. The industry changes are not slowing down, but with Adodo you can begin to see through the fog
- impartial advice at all times.
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