not really a fair comparison though,is it?
back in those days there was a limited amount of bandwidth,general public didn't have access to any of it,and the data rates were abominable.
these days the equipment has matured to the extent of joe public having access to a fairly substantial amount,outside the "licenced" broadcasters.
you can say the same for ISP's and Telco's.
this is still work in progress as the amount of data per user is still increasing exponentially.hence the need for innovation from basic sms/email to the streaming apps we see today.
It's still very much work in progress with cloud/server based computing(next is streaming games in HD/High FPS), and real time data apps like active traffic management.
the standard modem you have and the typical 1gb/s LAN gear on your PC motherboard is going to be faster by the order of 10* in the next 5 years or so.
This is even before we get to really safety critial gear like autonomous vehicle detection.
the railway will eventually follow suit, first with in cab signalling, and then real time positioning/maintainance.
from a railway perspective, the real kick in the pants was done in the 1960's/1970's with the advent of widespread motor ownership.
It gave people the "right here,right now" option to go where they pleased,when they pleased.Something that the train could not provide.
The railway still has the option of "but we can get you there faster", but at the moment certainly not noticeably so, and is more expensive for sure.
the best bang for the buck will be to get the signalling systems up to date nationwide.this is NR's remit rather than any specific ToC.
I think you've rather misunderstood my point, which was nothing to do with technology, and was about franchising and monopolies
For a period of time, ITV was the only commercial TV channel available in the UK, and was made up from a number of regional franchises. Companies would bid for these - e.g. Thames having the London weekday franchise - knowing that they would have a complete monopoly on TV advertising in the area, which was very lucrative.
Now however we have 100s/1000s of viewing options - i.e.
competition - so the government no longer has this franchise auction, and ITV has effectively just become another TV channel
If I was bidding for a lucrative rail franchise (say West Coast), it would be worth a certain sum of money as a
monopoly franchise. If however the government allowed lots of competition (assuming for the argument that paths etc existed) picking off passengers on the most popular routes, then without a monopoly the franchise would be worth a lot less.
Thus the more competition there is, the less money the government/industry can make through the franchise system. Indeed franchises might become unsalable if too much competition exists