Crossed wires

Chris Huhne wants to know why we don’t shop around more for our utilities. I’ll give him one reason. The liberalisation of utility markets has created an impression of bewildering choice, but when things go wrong you realise that there is no choice at all, just the same old creaking infrastructure, owned and operated by the legacy company of an old nationalised monopoly. In fact, in one sense, liberalisation has made things worse: with a multiplicity of companies involved, you are never quite sure who is responsible for your pipes or your wires. You can find yourself caught between two companies, each blaming the other for your problem, via the inevitable call centres in Bangalore.

I am writing this while squatting on other people’s computers. It is nearly two weeks since the internet connection in my home failed. I immediately reported the problem to my internet service provider, AOL — originally America Online but in Britain now owned by TalkTalk. I was put through to an Asian call centre. After offering me the usual most humble apologies the operator had me turn my router on and off, change the wires around and alter the settings, before telling me to try again in the morning. I did — and spent another half hour on the phone. This time, while still insisting there was nothing wrong with its server or the line to my house, AOL agreed to send an engineer because there must be something wrong with my computer.

When he came two days later he plugged his own router into my phone socket and declared that the problem was with the line leading to my house. However, he couldn’t do anything because the wiring was owned by BT, and only BT was allowed to touch it.