The GAO issued a report recently that seems relevant to the AT&T/BellSouth merger -- particularly in connection with business lines.

The report says that "in areas where FCC granted full pricing flexibility due to the presumed presence of competitive alternatives, list prices and average revenues tend to be higher than or the same as list prices and average revenues in areas still under some FCC price regulation."  The GAO's report suggests that there isn't meaningful competition for commercial telecommunications business in the United States. "In the 16 major metropolitan areas we examined, available data suggest that facilities-based competitive alternatives for dedicated access are not widely available," the study discloses. "Data on the presence of competitors in commercial buildings suggest that competitors are serving, on average, less than 6 percent of the buildings with demand for dedicated access in these areas."

Here's more from Lasar's Letter on the GAO report, which was picked up by FreePress, which was picked up by the Benton Foundation -- if only the Commission was picking all of this up as well.