According to Jacob Ward, the privatization of British Telecom was a "landmark moment for neoliberalism." It became a model for other countries that sold their state utilities. Planners in the Long Range Planning Department used new computer models to support the transition of telecommunications and more generally the dramatic move from social democracy to neoliberalism, from monopoly to market. The telecommunications network was essential to plans for the digitalization of the economy. Computer simulations were needed to support neoliberalism, both as a managerial tool that could simulate free markets, as well as a technology that enabled the contraction of the government’s role in the private sector.