So I've decided to read about the AT&T divestiture -- and, boy, does Ma Bell's pre-breakup rhetoric sound familiar. Paraphrasing:

Everything is so much more efficient because AT&T is vertically integrated.  In fact, it would be dangerous to move away from vertical integration -- dangerous to universal service, to the price of local telephone service, and to consumers generally.  And, by the way, it would endanger our networks to allow foreign attachments...

Anyway, so here we are, lovely end of summer day in New York.  With a crash of suits, the students have returned.  The building doesn't seem to be quite ready for them -- a couple of floors are still under construction.  But, heck, classes don't start for four more days.  Dear students, welcome back.

Big and welcome news from Brussels today, as Viviane Reding follows through on her determination to force Deutsche Telekom to open up to competition.  I wrote about this a while ago (here).  Yes, a broad, persuasive, before-the-fact ("ex ante") rule mandating that the IP bitstream of DT be made available for connection.  So:

 Access to the broadband networks of Deutsche Telekom should be granted immediately and without further delay irrespectively of the underlying technology of the network. Any exclusion from the access obligation would jeopardise the working of competition in the market.

and the Commission explains that:

Bitstream access allows competitors to have access to the established operators' infrastructure in order to offer broadband services (for example high-speed internet, telephony) directly to end customers (households and business customers). This is of crucial importance for competition on the end user market.

The Commission also points out that lots of other perfectly respectable countries have mandated this kind of infrastructure access by competitors:

The vast majority of EU member states has mandated bitstream access some time ago. Bitstream access thus is today a reality on the broadband markets of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain. Sweden and the UK, with bitstream access in preparation also in the Czech Republic, while other countries (such as the Netherlands) are profiting from strong infrastructure-based competition.

Back to school, back to bitstream, back to remembering the AT&T divestiture.