Um, the telephone system in the UK was flawed because Edison tried to make the Brits buy everything and import it. He told them to use their guys, his concept of infrastructure, and it was basically his way or the highway, and they gladly accepted.

Contrast this with Germany who told Edison that they would provide the infrastructure, their people would be trained to operate it, and basically made it so they were self-sufficient and managed to create a cheap, usable telephone system.

I don't need a citation contrasting a centrally-planned economy and the government owning something like the telephone company. It should be dead obvious, and if you think otherwise you have just trolling me because I refuse to believe anyone is that ignorant.